Why Do We Deny The Existence Of Human Nature?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- In this episode, we explore some of the themes from my book, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Why do some people cling to the belief that humans are blank slates, with no influence from evolution or genes?
Join me as I unpack the fears driving this denial, born from common misconceptions, like mistaking sameness for equality, and believing we can eliminate traits in humans through training.
#pinker #cognitivepsychology #podcast #psychology #science #stevenpinker #motivation #success #mindset #sound #mind #brain #imagination #languagedevelopment #language #words #magic #memorizing #social #mechanism #humanbehavior #fear #expressions #music #universal #genetics #equalitynow
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As an evolutionary biologist I have had yelling fights, and even trod the boundaries of physical confrontation, just for reminding others that human beings have instincts.
Of course, those people clench their fists and bare their teeth at me just like any other primate, LOL!
I love the irony.
Fellow academics ? 🤣
Its funny untill you remember that these people vote. Secular version of religious people.
Maybe it's you bud. Everyone knows that people have instincts
@@SonOfMorningI would make the case that academically trained Christians are more open to ideas and less threatened by opposing positions than most tenured academics. Further, I assert that the Medieval, Catholic university (e.g. Paris, Cambridge, Cologne, etc) was far more open to divergent ideas than are modern Western universities.
Yessaaahhh!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
...all the while face glowing red yelling how wrong you are! Lol!😂😂😂
100% agree, we deny our ugliness and make it worse by not accepting it. You can't work on your faults, if you don't want to know them.
We need to separate two things here. 1. Denying human nature 2. Using human nature as an EXCUSE for poor performance.
Those two points are well thought of, because they're also regulating each other from going too far.
I was first thinking there should be a third point about not having too much of high ideals against our humanity. But then I realised that's already included in the first point.
Pinker's point about music is half wrong and poorly expressed.
Evolution selects for adaptive behaviors/traits, but the hereditary mechanism it acts through is genetics, and the relationship between genetics and behavior/traits is 1:N, not 1:1, so there are lots of "unintended consequences".
In fact it's more messy than that, since genetic changes tend to accumulate as long as they are not majorly detrimental, and it may only be when something in the environment changes that some of the traits conferred by this basket of accumulated changes become significant and are selected for (or against). This is the theory (inevitable, but also observed in the fossil record) of "punctuated equilibrium".
So generally we're talking about an M:N relationship between genetic changes and resulting changed traits (i.e. a bunch of accumulated changes, and a bunch of resulting affected traits), and what matters therefore is whether this full set of changed traits are of net benefit or not. e.g. It may be that only one of them is beneficial, and the rest merely harmless.
In the case of music (which a number of animals also clearly also enjoy - not just humans) it seems that the genetic underpinnings is something related to rhythm and timing, and that the trait really being selected for was something more profound than love of music which is just one of those M:N "unintended consequences" that came along as part of the package deal. One could speculate as to what the timing/rhythm based trait(s) were that were really selected for - I'd guess something pretty deep such as timing-based sequence recognition/generation.
So, is love of music part of human nature? Well, yes, but that doesn't mean that it is what drove evolution to select for it's genetic underpinnings. That's not to say that there is no evolutionary benefit to love of music, and in the modern world there probably is, but that's not what drove the changes that caused it in the first place.
In summary, it's complicated, which means that any simplistic answer is wrong.
to me music (or rhytim and timing a you say) has an evolutionary advantange because it probably helped humans in the past to better coordinate their attacks to beat another group or may be it help them to reach acertain state of mind that better served a particular use, like the anger for a fight or calmness or empathy to better bond with your group.
nit picking, an essential activity for primates exposed to nits.
Very interesting
An interesting hypothesis.
Agreed. And it gets even more complicated when you factor in epigenetics which allows some genes to be expressed and some to be suppressed based on environment and even environment of near ancestors like parents and grandparents. The complexity boggles the mind and definitely leaves massive space for "unintended" consequences and behaviors.
My only gripe about this essay is that he attributes views to the “we” in the title that I think few people actually hold. I think the number of people who hold an absolute “blank slate” view is rather small. I would have preferred he start with a quote from a prominent person who holds the view he objects to. Instead he starts with a straw man that he ascribes to all of us.
Agreed. He's says it is his most controversial book, yet this view would be held by almost every evolutionary biologist, and I'd suggest by anyone with a basic understanding of human biology and evolution. And by most parents… there are behaviours that are never taught, yet children around the world do them. Is there anyone who actually holds to the 'blank slate' hypothesis for more than a few moments?
@@AJPemberton "yet this view would be held by almost every evolutionary biologist"
True, but its not the evolutionary biologists that are opposing nature, its every University Humanities department. Post Modern philosophers also oppose it, as it goes against the Post Modern ideological core. Post Modernism doesn't work if humans have a nature. I agree that it's still only a small cohort of people living in fantasy land, but the problem is, these utopian dreamers have a really LOUD voice, as in they run the Universities and DEI departments. ;)
Totally agree. He's using a bit of a straw man argument. I mean, even cultural anthropologists don't deny human nature.
I think it might have been better to point to the blank slate hypothesis as one end of a spectrum of possible hypotheses, the other end being the notion that human nature determines everything in us. That would have defined said spectrum and he could have followed up asking where on it we actually are?
Thank you for this analysis.
Great arguments are made by those who are not antagonistic or wanting control. We are at the level of near-mass hysteria, which is magnified by that control and antagonistic behavior that encourages toxic culture.
We need the who, what, where, when and how questions answered to assist those who may be lacking in prefrontal cortex cognition, as this may be what our culture needs to be focused on.
The greed and toxic politics are a symptom of the problem, as they are correlated but cannot be proven causal.
I think it’s the best critique is less that human nature is nonexistent, and more that it’s inaccessible. How would you go about separating real human nature - permanent conditions of human existence - from the temporary contingencies of a certain historical age?
If human nature is meant to describe some sort of human attribute that we can say existed amongst all humans in the past and will continue to exist throughout all humans in the future, then I think it’s reasonable to say there’s too much background noise to describe anything but the most basic stuff like acquiring culture or feeling fear or playfulness as human nature. We’d need to keep adding caveats like “most societies experience this” and “generally humans are like this”, and the more caveats we add the less useful those generalizations are. Prioritizing an abstract model of human nature over the messiness of the real world seems like just as flawed of an approach as assuming we’re each a blank slate.
Human nature can reasonably be thought of as largely being our core emotions, the degree to which they're experienced (frequency and severity), and associated motivations; direct and indirect. Other aspects of human nature would include cognitive and physiological capacities, etc. But the factors listed can explain responses to "temporary contingencies".
social constructivist
Human beings have instincts and a range of cognitive and physiological abilities that are generally shared across the human race. No need for too much Foucaultian/constructivist argumentation here.
"[T]here’s too much background noise" Background noise, or "the messiness of the real world" as you also put it, is what research psychologists like Pinker are around to deal with. (Also, up to a point, evolutionary biologists and cultural anthropologists.) There's a lot of it, to be sure, but it can be chipped away at.
What seems too often overlooked is the fact that we are a social species. By confining our vision to the individual we misread the real selective system shaping/driving behavior.
That’s very true-the narrative today is that we’re only a sea of individuals, but that’s not how we have evolved.
Pinker does not understand or represent human nature. His work is only a grandiose projection of his own values and experience.
@@azalia423 Accent on the word, "grandiose".
@@azalia423 whose work is NOT a projection of their own values and experience?
are you self-reporting as unemployable?
@@azalia423But isn't everyone's to an extent
What an amazing content and delivery and what an awful editing with flat uninteresting stock videos
I know! Better just to see Pinker speaking than have those 'bad ad' videos.
Hi Steven, thank you for the insight!
Would you do a discussion/debate with Robert Sapolsky? I find both of your views very interesting.
For anyone interested in the struggle between inborn nature and the demands of human society, I strongly recommend a short work by Sigmund Freud, _Civilization and Its Discontents._ Its intellectual calorie density is through the roof and it offers a great deal even to people hostile to his psychoanalytic vision concerning neuroses.
If our current lives were only a fraction of our existance, would that really devalue them? If there was only one book, movie or song, would that make them more valuable? Perhaps. But I cannot help but notice that people who value those things tend to create them abundantly and/or consume them frequently.
I think you could just as likely turn it around and say the abundant things are the most valuable. Air is pretty valuable for instance.
We value life because of the experiences it affords us. The more experiences the greater the life most of us seems to think, so why would those experiences be less worth if they continued beyond our short lifespans?
Agreed. People's preconceived ideas about whether or not there is a God, an underlying consciousness behind creation are a sort of paradigm at the base of our perspectives. This is the first I've seen of this man, and he's pretty clearly an atheist and speaking from that POV; his failure to understand how faith can enrich the value of temporal existence for the faithful comes from his atheism. This in itself is neither good nor bad until he makes a blanket statement that belief in any sort of existence beyond physical death devalues life. To people of faith it's quite the opposite!
I thought most of this was spot-on. An important thing that this little segment doesn't address is that the friction between religion and science is totally unnecessary. Each side seems to forget that God's existence can neither be proved nor disproved. The problems come when scientific claims are used to try to prove the non-existence of a Universal Consciousness and religious claims are made as attemps to deny scientific fact.
@@Nothingcanbeaprettycoolh-ct7ws I have seldom recieved a more intelligent and thoughtful reply to a comment on TH-cam. Thank you for that. I also agree with you and I have been thinking about these topics (belief, knowledge, science, spirituality and faith) for over three decades now. Even though Pinker is one of the foremost scientists and thinkers in the world, he - like many others like him - seems unable (or maybe unwilling) to consider metaphysical possibilities. I have great respect for the scientific method and its ideals, but far to often the scientists themselves fall short of those ideals.
Take the topic of ufos/uaps. They are completely irrational, ignorant and narrowminded. They refuse to even consider the possibility of the presence of an intelligence not from our civilization. There is no curiosity whatsoever. They don't know what it is and therefore, according to themselves, have no desire to investigate. They demand the end result (proof) before they are prepared to engage in the very process (scientific inquiry) which is the very thing that could potentially provide those proofs. It boggles the mind. Of course, this attitude is rapidly changing now, but it's a disgrace that it's taken this long. Well, this is a pet peeve of mine. 😄
Anyway, as a spiritual and intellectual person it pains me that the discussion of these topics so often are held at such an infantile and stupid level, so thanks again for your sharing your interesting thoughts.
@@rasmuslernevall6938 Thank you for the compliment. So I'm probably older than you since I've been thinking about these things since my early teens half a century ago. I majored in religious history at a state university where it was straight history without agenda or dogma. And hey - gotta use that major somewhere! :)
Pinker quotes Spinoza in this. A favorite quote of mine is:
"I believe in the God of Spinoza." ~Albert Einstein
I too reject a personal God. Maybe the most influential person on my thinking has been the mythologist, Joseph Campbell. If you're not familiar, his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces is an important read, especially the beginning where he outlines his "monomyth" model. He also did a fascinating series of interviews with Bill Moyers called "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth." It's on YT and I think might still be on Netflix.
Campbell also rejected a personal deity. When he was called an atheist because of this he smiled and said, "I don't see how anyone can call me that because I believe in so many Gods!"
Interesting that you bring up UFOs as it's also been an interest of mine since my late teens. I agree with you on it too. There are literally thousands of credible eyewitness accounts from all over the world, many of which come from pilots and police - people who are trained in the skills of accurate observation. A lot of these accounts are also corroborated by civilian and/or military radar. You'd think finding an explanation for these phenomena might be a good place to start. Or maybe they'd start with the work of nuclear physicist, Stanton Friedman, or the work of once head of the astronomy department at Ohio State, J Allen Hynek, but no. Where does the scientific community start? SETI! 😆
@@Nothingcanbeaprettycoolh-ct7ws Presuming preconception is a cognitive error. Dissociated nonphysical bosses, lords, or other entities acting in antisocial HUMAN ways, that is, rewarding or exacting retribution from humans, is astonishing schizophrenic delusion.
My own early subadult life was SEVERELY distorted and made incoherent by extremist parental religious delusions, along with one's brutal and brutish GABAergic inducing alcohol.
BOTH are severely abusive, and BOTH should be COMPLETELY removed from human social interaction. My own life was devastated by the two, very much TWIN delusions - GABA is a synaptic neural signaling suppressant, useful as naturally produced within neurons. Additional GABA narrows perceptions due to overexpression of signal suppression.
Think "narrow-minded" and you will have exactly described the reduction fo cognitive capacity into only limited neural channeling of signaling.
THERE you have religion, dogma, and the depressant effect of that and alcohol.
Glad to see SP revisit what I think is his best work that I've read.
he should write a follow up book. he said himself that denial of human nature is even worse now than it was when he wrote it
Steve nailed it here. He structured thoughts I’ve had in the topic for some time (or increasingly developed over time), so well.
As a biologist (and, incidentally, a musician :)), I could not agree more with this analysis. I very much like the way the synopsis is delivered as well, as the intellectual brilliance of the speaker presents with a gentleness often absent in those endowed (and, yes, there indeed are differences in endowment, not just opportunity) with a brilliant mind. Steven is a refreshing representative of the intelligentsia, and there is a very important critique of modern culture trends nested within the arguments.
What Pinker uses is optimistic-backed data. So in his books, he skips the study of the kind nature of bonobos, which is a closer relative to us than chimpanzees.
He has a wonderful way of getting you to consider his ideas, whether you think they are "controversial" or not. 💛💙💛💙💛💙
"Common sense is not that common"
- Voltaire
How is it in French original? Also a pun that works perfectly like in English?
At the End of the Day humans are not the special creation of a God we are just smart apes
Regarding music: It could be something related to hemispheric dominance for language (usually left hemisphere) where there is clearly a set of hard-wired abilities to analyze sound as needed to support language comprehension and production. Things like formants, object identification to separate conversations, etc that are used in the left hemisphere might well be present in the right hemisphere where the mechanism that specializes the hemispheres creates different analyses in the right hemisphere that manifests as music appreciation. For example, identifying melodic voices in counterpoint and canons might be related to identifying different speakers in left-hemisphere processing, along with differing harmonically related sounds in the right hemisphere as belonging to different instruments as they relate to different speakers in the left.
Because there is some internal reward and reinforcement for learning and producing language, "the language instinct", the same circuitry in the right hemisphere could tap into reward and appreciation of activating the same processing circuits in the right hemisphere when "appreciating" music.
Just a half-baked idea I wanted to throw out there . A functional MRI study of hemispheric activation for language versus music, (probably already done) might show this.
My pet theory is that music, song and dance evolved because they are a powerful means of submerging the individual into the group. Singing and dancing in a group helps us transcend ourselves and become part of a greater whole, making our group identity more salient than our individual identity. This has massive benefits in terms of inter-group competition and intra-group co-operation.
Doesn't need to be that complicated. Is the ability to recognize various wavelengths of light an adaptation? Yup. See how we are done already? Notes are variations in wavelength of sound. And harmonies and harmonics are recognition of resonance within. Same damn thing. Not to mention the social aspects inherent. The balm and soothing of a mother's voice singing lullabies. The group bonding of singing and dancing around a campfire, or carrying a rhythm on drums together. He is just DEAD wrong about the music. Even the smart ones make stupid mistakes sometimes. Marching IS a form of rhythm. Rhythm is used to "synch" groups together in mind and body through marching and organized movement. Rhythm is an ESSENTIAL core of music, and rhythm IS music with or withou notes. I'm afraid that Pinker's understanding of what music IS, must be terribly flawed.
@@MatthewCleere Sorry, but I don't understand what you are getting at. "Harmonies and harmonics are recognition of resonance within" - I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I was working under the assumption that music has no demonstrable evolutionary advantage as Pinker mentions, but needs an explanation.
How about "Is the ability to recognize various wavelengths of light an adaptation? Yup. See how we are done already?" But we don't, really, recognize various wavelengths of light. What we perceive are colors, which are based on the outputs of three types of cone cells. Colors are brain-produced qualia that are not directly related to wavelengths; there are many colors that are not produced by a single wavelength of light, and scanning through all visible light wavelengths does not produce all possible colors. Colors are an adaptation that allows humans to tag visual objects with an attribute that can be helpful and thus confers an evolutionary advantage.
@@jonahansen Our eyes detect light, right? More than just light, but varying intensities and wavelengths. It doesn't matter how. It happens to be through our brain's manufacturing of color qualia. These do correspond to actual wavelengths. They are not arbitrary. It does not matter that our rods and cones are attuned to only 3 wavelengths, because the combination of those, processed through our visual cortex, much slower than sound is processed, by the way, adds up to an ability to repeatedly recognize specific wavelengths. Sure, there are visual illusions and imperfections in the process, but it is in no way random. Just as the "ear" can be trained to recognize perfect pitch, so can the eye be trained to recognize colors by name. As far as the "harmonies as resonance", I am talking about specific notes that "go together" in what we call musical keys and produce "chords" together. A very strong argument could be made that language sprang from music, and not the other way around. Considering that millions of species on this planet make music and recognize each other for mating purposes via either rhythm or tone or both, and millions of species were doing this LONG before language was "created" by man, i honesty have no idea how an evolutionary biologist could possibly see this any other way. Language was quite clearly evolved over time after the senses used within it were sufficiently adapted to such use. Music is clearly a form of language used by innumerable species. This fact alone kills Pinkers argument dead. Add the way that we use music in dance, story telling, physical training, cadence for TIMING, warning, joy, and, most of all, shared bonding experiences with fellow human beings, and frankly, this is why a smart guy like Pinker is either trolling us with this absurd statement, or stuck in some personal bias loop of idiocy with regard to the topic. Maybe he just has trouble admitting when he is wrong. Cheers.
@@MatthewCleere Dude, I don't know where you get your information or how you think logic works, but consider:
Vision and light wavelengths work very differently than sound and acoustic wavelengths (equivalently frequencies). In sound, the ear essentially performs a Fourier decomposition of a sound, so a chord having three frequencies is perceived as such - each of the three frequencies are heard and can be identified and named. Vision is much different. Say we have three light sources of pure, monochromatic wavelengths that are perceived as green, yellow, and red. The green alone is perceived as green, the yellow as yellow, and the red as red. When all three are displayed, you don't "see" a "chord" where you can identify the green, yellow, and red wavelengths. You see only a yellow light. In fact, just the red and green will combine to produce yellow even though there is no pure light with a yellow wavelength present, while the yellow wavelength light alone also produces a yellow perception. So you can't tell the underlying wavelengths from the color you perceive. Very different indeed than audition. This is a result of the fact that color is an "illusion" or quale that the brain produces because it really only samples three integrated sets of wavelengths that each of the red, green, and blue cones respond to. Your ear samples ten thousand wavelengths that are kept separate well into cortical processing, and so can be identified and named. Vision does not support chords and harmonies - they map into single colors, often time colors that can't even be produced by a single monochromatic light source.
I needed to learn this 40 years ago.
Seeing the faults in religion and stepping away doesn’t necessitate stepping away from a Great Creator. I think many atheists don’t want there to be a Great Creator/Force for ego reasons just as many choose religion because they want to know all the answers (religion boiling down to “because it says right there.” To me, Great Creator is Love & Mystery and I see people on both sides (religious and atheist) aren’t content without pretending to have certainty, to know it all.
My father reflected with me on religion and spirituality. He stated that there were, at that time, about 7 billion folks on this old rock, and absolutely no two of them have the same views about God, or creation. Atheists don't know how it all started, so they make up bizzar stories of explosions and such. God fearing people don't know, so they say God made it. I guess I'll just let the mystery be. If one believes in God, I hope you are right. If one does not, I hope your are right. I've got my belief and it's private.
9:18 the NO1 reason why the $950 line is the most stupid decision of the last years .. tell people just don't steal too much at once .. WTF?
Excellent! I've believed this for 50 yrs. Some are born with gifts of intelligence, strength, physical superiority, beauty, charisma far beyond the average.
Everything is a combination of nature and nurture.
@@bobs182 Including epigenetics - the influences of our environments and our choices on genetic expression.
Karma ❤🎉
And some are not. More likely these “gifts” are not all expressed in one person or group but are randomly scattered. You probably know someone who is handsome but dumb as a doorstop, ugly but strong, smart but weak.
@@glyphics1943No they're white traits i am gonna add hidden racism there.
"I don't think there's anything particularly uplifting about belief in an after-life because it devalues life on earth". Pretty well describes Nietzsche's fundamental critique of Christianity. One of the greatest mistakes people can make in their one and only life is to overlook the meaning of existing now.
There is no meaning to existing now. It’s all empty and meaningless. Which, once you get that, gives you the blank slate to create whatever meaning in your life that you desire.
A definition of human nature to begin with, would be helpful. There are many conceptual confusions in this presentation.
I agree, to me, it is what a certain percentage of us would do, when presented with a certain situation. Like, if a earthquake hits LA, how do most of the people react. Or, if a shooter enters a crowd, what do most of the people in the crowd do. Make up a situation and think how people would react. that is what human nature is to me, I suppose there's other things to it also. If something nice happens, most people smile. Human Nature.
Would love to see a talk between SAPinker and JonHaidt on morals :)
Haidt has long been quite active in controlled experiment as well as observational research. Make SURE, you DO read his peer-reviewed work, BEFRE being excited about what i here presume desire for debate.
As a non-biologist average Joe, I appreciate this blip we're experiencing right now. I appreciate my car and being able to drive it coast to coast without checkpoints and having everything I need along the way. Spending hours looking out of a window on a jet plane. Soloing an airplane alone. Calling my sister only to find out she's in Spain, not the next town over like normal. A lifetime of store shelf's full of enticing products. Education. The Internet. Phil Spector's The Wall Of Sound. I also understand this is a blip in our history soon to go away forever.
Could be. After all, empires have fallen and dark ages followed. Or we could continue on the enlightenment trajectory for a while longer (I hope). Watching what's happening in the States lately I lean towards your perspective.
I suppose it all depends on what aspects of this 'blip in history' you care about. Since the development of writing, our understanding of the world has built on what has gone before. That has dramatically increased with the development of the scientific method. Neither of those are likely to disappear. SO education should be good, for most moderately comfortable societies. Planes and cars may not be as common once oil runs out, but that is not the only way to trade or travel.
I know there are a myriad of ways things could fall over, but there are also billions of people invested in keeping them going. The USA's desent into madness (how a convicted felon and sex offender is even in the running for President, let alone reverently supported by so many is beyond me!) is not necessarily the worlds. For all this to fade away would require the whole world to go mad. Not sure that is as likely as you think.
Yep. It's an aberration. Yet for how many more years or generations or centuries it can be prolonged is an open question. We mustn't become resigned to a backslide or at some point the resignation itself will cause one.
Shelves. You're welcome.
Eastern cultures try to transcend the Ape Mind. Western cultures try to resurrect it.
In Western of cultures (at least in those parts of the West that were once Christian), the mind was to be "renewed". That's a little different than just resurrected. There are of course Eastern traditions in which one can literally be reborn as a chimp or a gorilla.
Not a blank slate, more an open PC application, so it mostly depends on the imported data.
Evolution is change, not improvement.
This is a most important insight!
Adaptation is important to survival, and is therefore an improvement in that sense.
What works results in more individuals == improvement. First principle goal is propagation.
@@virtualalias That's true. I think the OP is making value judgements, such as, "more intelligence is an improvement." Of course, human intelligence has enhanced our survival, but superior human intelligence isn't as important to evolutionary forces as physical beauty. Our sex symbols are objects of desire because of their superior beauty, not their superior intellects. So, he's not wrong in that sense. It all depends on what you consider an improvement. Evolution favors survival and propagation, a point hilariously made by the movie "Idiocracy."
@@waynegrabert6839
The ability to breed before you die. Pretty much what its all about. All other improvements are peripheral.
PLEASE STOP MOVING THE CAMERA ANGLE ABOUT!
first he's talking to me, then someone else, then back to me and someone else again. I can't watch this, it makes me dizzy
Too much royal We in the Title, Steve.
We are in fact quite able to distinguish many human traits involved in deception, Machiavellianism so far beyond the behaviors of other organisms, and intraspecies animus more lethal to one another, than any other significantly social species.
Our use of symbolic verbal noises so far dissociates us from reality, that we too often live entire lives unable to function even in temperate and calm nature - for example, the human trait of attributional exteriorization of responsibility and cause - to OTHER individual humans or organisms; just as domesitcally infantilizes dogs look to humans to resolve difficulties, so do we, rather than first using our critical faculties (i do not speak "socially" but individually, concerning exploration of options. Human society is a HIGHLY dissociated artifact of epiphenomenonolgical behavioral and appears to induce Cognitive error)
The brain operates OUTSIDE of symbolic social communication, "language" which is exclusively social, and due to natural organismic self-interest, occurring in the tiniest and earliest single celled organisms.
What are mislabeled "instincts" behavior without even seeking insight as to cognitive processes, which are quite FAST.
As example, I do NOT suddenly wave my hand constantly, but in response to a falling glass or other object, accurately snatch it from the air. THIS is Cognition, NOT "instinct", which sudden fast wavings would, if occurring WITHOUT intention, would make me quite dangerous to be near, were it NOT a cognitive act.
The dilemma-induction called "hangry" is also NOT intstinct r uncontrollable. Only in the sedentary modern world have our brains so engaged in DEMANDING expectation (perhaps too like your compatriot J. Peterson), that we DE-prioritize formerly prosocial interactions (see the famed increased severity of judges' sentencing for correlation with such inappropriate deprioritization!)
THe incredible distortions of originally useful environmental responses into habitual ritual, and consequent cognitive error of attribution of necessarily efficient brain heuristic formation - memories, habits, attributions - resulted in "religion" and misperception of agency to stochastic events along with other organisms/human natural self-interest choices to "deities" - i REFUSE to use the Danish/Frisian word for Good, (or Al, or even Fred, who DID explore in the Stanford Forgiveness Project, the dfact that we function best in dyadic information exchange. so, your "gods' SHOULD, MOST rationally be called your Freds) to arrogate my self-interest as Uber Alles, as do those aiming guns and suicide vests to gain delusory 72 virgins by my decomposing cells and large body chinks.
And now, I am ready to begin auditing your wisdom!
For the most part, the civilized social construct works exactly opposite to how we humans evolved. For 99.5% of our species time on earth, humans lived in small, kin-related bands of ~ 10 to 40 people. Band level society recognizes only two strict social divisions within the group - gender and age. Also, BLS utilizes a sharing economy and recognizes an egalitarian governing structure guided by trusted elders. The civilized social structure rejects all of these evolutionary traits. All civilizations - past and present - fragments then divides people from one another and even from themselves through specialization and a social hierarchy based on privilege, influence, wealth and power ... the pyramid of power. Pinker is a great example of a highly-specialized urbanite who produces nothing essential to humanity. He's a thinker and a talker totally dependent on a horde of other people to provide EVERYTHING he needs to survive and thrive.
I agree and disagree. Romans 9:20,21, But who are you, O man, to be answering back to God? Does the thing molded say to its molder: why did you make me this way? What? Does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the (same lump) one vessel for an honorable use, another for a dishonorable use?
We are all from the same lump of clay. No one is from a different kind of clay. Yes, one might be a doctor. One might be a noble prize winner in physics. One might be the next greatest athlete in football, basketball, or baseball. However, the clays environment will decide. The basketball play may never set foot on a basketball court. The doctor or physicist may never have the money or family support to go to school. So they end up in prison. The vessel that was intended for a dishonorable use might become a hero and save countless lives. If we're not a blank slate at birth, then that's predeterminism. Sorry, but your genes say...😢, you'll never amount to anything, or did mom say that because you stole a candy bar when you were 8? Our genes are not fate. We have free will, which is more like self-deterimism.
Peace and Ahev
The we stuff means the stuff we are made of, the biological homo sapiens without emblishments it means nature and nurture, the human being that's all😊
This doesn't take away from you overall point, but the evolutionary benefit of music is obvious when you take sexual selection into account. We see obvious parallels with human music in mating calls of other animals; in birds we even refer to these as "songs". In humans, one need only look at the phenomenon of "groupies" in relation to popular bands. Gene Simmons, for example, claims to have slept with thousands of women. The best book---to my knowledge--to read on the subject is The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller.
(^o^) The universe was created in 1976. It is too hot to make a universe at the time of the big bang. It can be created at anytime. God is slow and easy. A human can do a lot with their lifespan. I got the hunk. God got the chunk. Everyone else can have the rest. That is song spirit of ''76 by The Alarm.
Music shares around 75% of Charles Hockett's design features of language, features like duality of patterning, etc., which is a higher percentage than for any animal system of communication that I can think of. I think this strongly suggests that music is a byproduct of language or that the two systems share a common ancestor. Deserves a closer look.
I, for the most part, enjoy listening to Steven. Today, I'm disappointed a bit by his simple thought on an afterlife. That, to me, is a very complex subject. Christianity teaches, that if one is good on Earth, they will enjoy a good afterlife, and suicide is a mortal sin. Einstein's theories on physics could be used to support an afterlife, with the unlimits of time and space, who knows? perhaps my molecules could rejoin down the road a few billion yrs. from now.
Do you believe that veganism can be understood as a step forward in the evolutionary process. That through veganism we can evolve spiritually and socially and this would lead to, not only our survival but that of the other animals and the planet, thereby securing the future of our existence?
Think again.
Humans use music for the purpose of reliable long term memory.
This is why you can remember the lyrics to a song you haven't heard for 10 years. It's the hangover of needing to maintain detailed social constructs over long periods of time, before writing there were songs.
'yesterday, all my troubles...'
(^○^) We need to popularize the idea of getting God married. Getting God married is a good use of someone's time. You are supposed to make the environment intelligent so no God is needed. We fixed the video and audio for the best experience possible. Cameras are supernatural and all of them captured 3D that not a gimmick. The audio loud don't make violence so has depth. Nobody has to buy anything for it to work.
Biology supervenes on physics and we have no idea what physics supervenes on. We have no idea as to why matter (that we cannot even define) should organise itself into ephemeral life-forms that briefly pop into existence and disappear without leaving much of a trace. The basic rule of the Universe is impermanence aka extinction as evidenced by the fact that 99.99% of all Earth biological species have gone extinct. In that context, the notion of biological adaptation is just wishful thinking and the best we can do is to avoid causing our own extinction which seems improbable given that Humankind has fragmented itself along culturally defined notions of gender, race, nationality, religion and ideology and has slaughtered millions in endless wars while inventing better and better means of death and destruction since the beginning of "civilised living" 10,000 years ago. Meanwhile, for a biologist to claim that "we are just our brain" is nonsensical since the brain is no more important than any other vital organ in any living organism.
Thank you Mr Pinker for providing some balance and follow on from Nature vs Nurture :)
You did really well with this episode :)
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1:50 I agree. We touched upon this in the Nature vs Nurture episode. We are born with natural native characteristics that are evolutionary and them learn to temper those instincts via education and culture.
“Every human being is born a barbarian, and only culture redeems them from the bestial.” ― Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
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3:42 reconfirmed.
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5:06 Unlike many other creatures our human brain/head is too large to carry too much genetic information forward through birth. We as humans rely very heavily upon nurture to add in the extra information for the brain to finish developing after birth. Morals, ethics, culture, politics, religion etc. all come in from that social structure that we are grown into. This doesn't eliminate our fundamental traits/nature that we are born with, it just tempers them to some extent. We are still prone to Fight, fright or flight unless specifically trained to suppress it.
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5:54 We do have the personal capacity to choose how we behave in a particular circumstance. Unfortunately most are taught that they have no choice and thus never expend the energy to exercise conscious choice.
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau
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8:50 This is one of the issues/difficulties regarding personal responsibility and the idea of determinism also plays into it. At some point in our maturity we need to stop being reactive to the information imposed upon us from the external world and our genetics and become "More than the sum of our parts or experiences". A point where we become self determined and choose our own creation within the self. Unfortunately many seam to miss the memo on that and it does require education/instruction.
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I agree fully with the last part. Even a rock has purpose when consider it for long enough.
Your reply is interesting. I have a question. What is your opinion on ageing as our brains matures into our 70s?
@@owengreene382 As studied as I am I am not a psychologist, but to your question.
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My learned opinion says 40, 60, 80 should not make much difference. But like the old dog learning new tricks, or the leopard changing spots, do we still have the drive and motivation to learn new skills or put in the effort to change our beleif systems or paradigm (The subjective lens though we we interpret the world) at that age?
I am not sure what text is recommended outside of Australia but Candida Peterson "Looking Forward Through Lifespan: Developmental Psychology" is gold standard for understanding our development milestones throughout life, to get a sound starting base line of our common developmental stages of maturity.
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As far as malleability and concrete thinking goes, we tend to mature (settle) into more set (concrete) beliefs through our mid 20s maturity milestone. The mind still remains malleable although a little more stubborn about change. Many (often unethical) studies about the malleability of the mind were conducted in both medical and military environments last century.
If we look around you will find that it is not unusual to change our political or religious beleif systems as we age. In some examples this change can be sudden such as as religious conversion as a common example.
In the above I have covered external influences that may have an impact on an individual.
"become self determined and choose our own creation within the self" We can take charge of that malleability of the mind (with care) and be the director (the one that chooses) our beleif systems.
A little like those small aha light bulb moments when we realize how something significant actually works, but it is not just that one experience as it also effects the way we will now view past and new experiences. Our beleif about that (our paradigm) has changed, and how we view many other things in life change with it after that moment. Paradigm shift are natural and often happen slowly and without the individual noticing the change in how we think about thing through a life time, or paradigm shift can be quite sudden and even unsettling (imaging near death experiences etc)
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Are we determined by the natural laws of the universe and have no say in it, are we determined in who and what we are by others around us, or are we self determined :)
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It is a complex area of thought, and being your own director takes thought and effort. Many good authors have covered part of that topic such as Robert Bolton and Stephen Covey (paradigms). Steven Pinker is extremely good at explaining human perception when considering our native subjective reality[s]
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Life is about the journey, the experience, not the destination. Ultimately we may not be able to choose the end destination of our life journey or where the universe progresses to (determinism) but I believe we can choose the different pathways along the way, even at 70 :)
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"Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you're alive it isn't. Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah"
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P.S. I am not religious. Maybe border line Deist via science and philosophy, but not really.
@@axle.studentyou, my friend, have a wonerful vocabulary, explaining the human mindset. You like me, love the scenic view to explain human behaver in this rigorous life we live. Your a breath of fresh air, my friend. Please keep in touch. Owen on the West coast of Ireland.
@@owengreene382 Thank you for your vote of confidence :)
I hope you are fairing well sir.
Axle (Alex) FNQLD Australia. Decedent from the Madron county of Cornwall.
@@axle.student Thank you for your generous reply's. I believe Cornwall is a most beautiful county. I have sister living in London, 40 years. She said "it's changed, not for the better, since Brexit arrived at their doorstep. And wishes she had made the move home to Donegal 20 years ago. But, Its to late now."
I told my kids that god gives you a set of cards, and you play them. Consider some day you have kids, and what you are going to do is told to them.
I read the Blank Slate and find it useful. Consider we have attractive useful parts and anoying unproductive parts.
Some of these have strong emotional triggers, and some we learn to control by deliberate thoughts.
Those with all aces are blessed. But if lazy and not challenged fail.
Those with a few strong cards play those, and work makes the difference.
Those who think they have a full house because they don't look at their cards play blind.
Anyone with children knows kids have core personalities developed in childhood. The point of the book is that the other 50 percent is variable. Peers and experiences have a great effect.
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He couldn't resist. He had to bring in the soul. He loves selling books.
That is where his science collides with his dollars. He would happily admit that this aspect of his psyche is a product of his environment. What he won't tell you is that his brand of atheism (not atheism in general) will definitely pass away when his generation does. In some ways the naiveté reflected in his words will be missed.
(^.^)(^-^)/ This is an artistic proof of a created universe. When you paint a shadow it's the opposite color of the object that made the shadow. Nobody knew what the opposite color of white was so the artists avoided painting white on white. The opposite color of white is baby blue and baby pink. The first artist to figure it out was Norman Rockwell. I was the second artist to figure it out. I saw it in the corner of a white room. The lighting was perfect to see it.
You seem to assume acceptance of a set of moral precepts that plenty of people manifestly don't share, e.g. that the ideal of fairness is somehow a moral given. Do you consider fairness an adaptation? It might just as likely be that a predisposition in part of a population to consider others fair is adaptive for a species.
What about the many who exploit others' good faith for their own ends (such as dominance)? - that seems as likely to be adaptive.
In general I find your arguments for social optimism pretty unconvincing. I wish you'd put more effort into seriously facing and addressing the many challenges to it. I don't think the empirical meliorist take of 'Better Angels' counts. Things have got worse as well as better, and there's not much basis for confidence that the race between better living conditions for all and no living conditions at all for anyone is going to end well.
This is a simple question to answer - Human Nature is a blanket term for EVERYTHING Homo sapiens sapiens think, say and do. For instance, is it "human nature" to be kind or be cruel or indifferent? YES! Is it "human nature" to make war and make peace and remain neutral? YES! Pinker confuses human instinct with human nature. They are not the same thing. It is human instinct to drink and eat food and seek shelter and mate. It is cultural choice that decides what to drink and when to eat and where to seek shelter and with whom to mate. Pinker is a reductionist and pure left-brain thinker.
I agree with most of this. However, we are most certainly programmable. It's important that we as society and its policy makers are very intentional about the values (programming) we institutional choose and in business, allow.
"blank slates..." Where is the magic? the spirit? Heavy thinking. Academic.
Obviously you are a brilliant guy and this is interesting. But, for most folks, “we are all wonderfully complex and we are all products of nature and nurture so treat all of your fellow humans as you would want to be treated” would suffice. I understand your points but I’m not sure that the practical implications of “blank slate absolutism” are insidious enough to warrant the depth of contradiction presented because most people listening to you have not had their nature nurtured enough to grasp what you are saying (read the comments here). And finally, we live in an increasingly unequal society in the US right now and it’s important to note that much of the political correctness is an overreaction to quantifiably unaddressed inequality and the still unaddressed flaws of human nature that is causing massive inequality.
It is all very encompassing but may deny what makes it all possible: the soul. If the influence of the soul were removed, bodies might drop dead instantly. Current AI cannot solve many open-ended problems, although they excel at closed-ended problems like chess and Go, where nothing unforeseen can happen in the next move, and brute force can be used.
Open-ended problems are those where events occur that are not accounted for in the AI program, and in such situations, the AI will often continue into areas of diminishing returns.
In my opinion, it is not straightforward or rational to assume that any current type of AI, which is based solely on logic operations and has the same computing power as a brain but without any input from a soul, will be able to solve all the open-ended problems that biological lifeforms, like the mammals humans have evolved from, have been solving throughout their lifetimes, often to the point of reproduction.
If there is indeed an input from a soul, that input is more advanced in some areas than what the brain, including the human brain, can generate.
Since we do not see these more advanced structures, they may reside in other dimensions and perform their work unbeknownst to the conscious mind.
A mechanism for this input could be the control over quantum collapses in the high field strengths over small distances in the brain, such as the electric field over the cell membranes of axons and cells.
I haven't watched this yet....but this is the question I ask myself every day
This world and especially the west is deviating and trying to fool mother nature.
I, too, am at the very least, skeptical of the notion of a soul, but the belief is VERY old, and is one of the ways that people have found to keep themselves accountable, even when they did not agree with whatever tyrant dominated them at the moment. Plus, you have to factor in that not all humans are intellectual, considering ideas such as the perfectibility of nature very often. They are too busy finding food or defending against invaders to philosophize much. Thus, belief in a soul is at worst, harmless, and at best, socially useful. And the basis for some of our most cherished traditions, such as the Commandments.
It's interesting that he mentioned totalitarian regimes. The Communists wanted the "new man" that got past human nature. The founders of America understood that people were not perfect, and worked on making a system robust enough to handle individuals disagreeing, being greedy, sometimes committing crimes, and trying to get more money by taking it from others. The idea that people can be, and should be, in it for the group and not individual is mostly seen on the economic left. This wiped out every communist nation, and harmed the nations that were very socialist. It's an "equality of outcome" idea that demonizes success and draws immoral people to the top of this upside-down moral scale.
＼(^^)／ Consciousness is the particle and wave double slit experiment. The cones and rods of your eyes preserve the particle and wave duality so your vision don't look like a flat screen television. It's supposed to be a violation of physics but it is the only exception in the whole universe.
Yes, controversial like when you spend time in Epstein island 🏝️ 😂
Was this recorded with two mics spaced quite a distance apart? The audio has a really awkward stereo field. I always enjoy your work Mr Pinker. Maybe chat to an audio engineer though. Cheers.
@@imusmoedegrasse
Ooof! Don’t slap too hard!
Why do some people deny their lineage? This belief can be damaging to the environment by artificially separating us from our place and responsibilities.
@@campbellpaul Their lineage as apes not regional. Many religious people want to believe we come from fables, not filthy apes.
In my opinion, we are born with a blank 'spreadsheet'. A spreadsheet begins with blank cells, waiting for input, but all of the rules, formulas and formatting already exist in the background (genetic predisposition).
That's a really useful analogy! Thanks.
More or less but yeah. Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind explained that we are born with “learning modules”. Think of them as switches in our brains that are turned on given certain stimuli.
For example, we aren’t born fearful of snakes but we are prone to be afraid of them (key word: prone). So, when we have a bad experience with snakes this switch is turned on - which makes us avoid any further danger related to snakes. This predisposition, like you say, comes through adaptation. This switch is activated through patterns that were relevant for our survival - it’s embedded in our being.
Equality is a mirage. Equivalence is a far more workable conceit. Now define equivalence - I dare you.
Help! Please refrain from insights in the human psyche… we’ve had our fill, and thereby… look at the state of ze world!
Who denies human nature? Even cultural anthropologists and sociologists don't deny human nature.
We're all genetically unique, with differently wired brains changed by epigenetic evolution.
Yes we all are perfectly imperfect.
We are also genetically wired to have common human traits.
o(^o^)o It's intelligently designed that if you master evolution it just makes you a baby doctor.
Those who emphasize instinct and minimize the plasticity of culture and capabilities of social organization are often justifying the status quo as the best of all possible worlds,
Religion is such a drag. Habits are a drag outside of routine tasks. Unexamined assumptions and beliefs are dukkha too. Facts are not debatable, assumptions are.
Dude its the other way around,,, if we embraced our uniqueness it would be our uniqueness that we have in common. At present society acts as a funnel pushing everyone down predictable channels for the purpose of turning a profit as the more similar our choices the more profit is made , what separates us is frowned upon and what makes us more similar is intentionally exaggerated nurtured and harvested....! if we all need want and desire similar things the effort to acquire them can be used to push everyone through the same size and shaped tooth paste tube making us think the same, act the same, dress the same, even learn to adopt similar tastes.....!
People have evolved to be selfish and take from others and narrow minds wishing to force their ideals on others.
The greatest survival niche humans have is cooperation. Language primarily exists for human cooperation. We don't have particularly good senses or built-in weapons but we do have social intelligence we use to cooperate with others.
Oh yeah? Well let me tell you….😂
All choice happens within the fishbowl of human constraint, environmental and biological. Why all the pontificating to say that Stevie?
Evolution equipped us for all the environments our ancestors thrived in and all the challenges they overcame. Human nature is a mixed bag of tools we might need. We aren't a blank slate, but experience determines what tools we take out of the bag and put on the workbench. Life causes detection of which environment we're in and which traits we will need to activate.
Once again a protected professor opines. How boring. Elon Musk anyday.
both the blank slate, and a consistant human nature seem obviously wrong, evolution is change, and the only disagreement seems to be between those who believe evolution is about 'goals' and its going 'somewhere', and those who seee evolution as random in its progression, only mediated by nature itself which does the selecting.
Thus what seems as order, is merely the boundry of what lets someone survive at one given moment, not really saying much about what will surive later (necesserly), or how this will accumalte towards future change
As a classic liberal I accept the most basic problem with liberalism, that once people are free then they will make different choices, and as soon as they make different choices there will be different outcomes. And as soon as there are different outcomes there will be inequality. It is inevitable, and one must accept certain limits and do their best to mitigate the inevitable inequality a free society will bring.
The corollary to this is people who want equality, and their refusal to admit that equality demands a lack of choice, because a lack of choice is the only way you can stop different outcomes. But what if you could not stop people from making different choices? What if their very natures compelled them to make different decisions? If that is the case then equality is impossible. And it is that fact that compels them to deny that human nature exists or that men and women are different, because if it is true their belief in an equal society is an impossibility. And that would destroy their faith in the society that they pretend can be real.
The momentum of each individual channelled and enforced by our government collectively creates a current swim against the current and you're in hell swim with the current and your in heaven but do not question the trajectory your participation is used to achieve ,,,, is this not precisely the anthroposphere we have created for ourselves?
codifying the wisdom traditions to programme the the human machine .. all sounds great but …
The Blank Slate is a fascinating book, I recommend it
In defending against generalizations, you tend to use a lot of generalizations...and there's a good deal of self-contradiction in what's said here. Not that i disagree with most of it, it's just that i feel it's a circular argument.
I notice there is no checkmark next to the channel name.
Is this actually Steven Pinker's channel? seems unlikely with on 10 thousand subs
It sounds like the unspoken assumption of these objections is that "human nature" is identical to material processes and entirely explainable by material processes.
Blank slate = Skinner's Behaviorism, which has long since been discarded.
You went beyond pleasure principle here, didn't you?
Quite fundamental and concise. Sigmund Freud and Joseph Campbell in conversation.
Thanks and Follow your bliss!
Deny it? I blame it on everything.
I don't get it, but the speech was enjoyable. It is like i become a little smarter after watching the video.
How the mind works, rethink:) enjoy Steven take on life. Hard to grasp
HUMAN NATURE IS NOT STATIC.
So you disagree with Pinker?
@@aranisles8292 Human nature is mostly a historical product. It cannot be static because humans, societies, nature etc are always changing and evolving.
@@epicphailure88 I would submit for all intents and purposes, human nature is unchanging. Any actual changes that take place are only noticeable or make any difference at all over periods of years in the millions. I don't think you can tell me within the period of recorded history, 5 or 6 thousand years, that human nature has changed at all. Plenty has changed superficially over that time, but not our basic nature.
You define 物の哀れ in form and substance....
Such great insight. Thank you Dr. Pinker!
So basically he’s saying postmodernism is wrong
And he's right.
Postmodernism is as meaningless as modernism
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believed that man was actually becoming more civilized over time. We are irrational beings that believe we are rational.
We need not be blank slates to be highly programmable though. Think TV and the internet.
I don't. The essence of all biological life is the urge to survive and reproduce.
We simply don't know enough to say for a fact what human nature is ,you will always end up to be wrong
3:15, 3:31 - Modern feminism is based on the idea of equality through sameness, and the trans agenda is a central part of that strategy.
smart guy...lots of what should be common sense....
The talk is good, but the imagery is fucking woke.
You have denied it yourself Pinker. “Better angels of our nature” is incoherent nonsense.
Why can we remember a tune we've not heard for half a century? Let's keep searching for an adaptive explanation.
Evolutionary selection is OFTEN involved with selection of proxy traits, rather than concisely genetic protein expression variation.
See Pleiotropy, polygenetic traits, epigenetic and transcriptional alteration.
While I happen to disagree with any preservation of epiphenomenal traits over ANY significant time period - selection occurs on EVERY possible variation that occurs - retention of signal perception is a good question.
The brain uses not only specific synaptic learned neural connective networks retained, enhanced, prioritized for utility, electrical signaling along neural (ads well as some nonneural glial signaling) cells. That form the different "waves: noted in neurological science, which also correlate with comprehensional variations.
This is too extensive to cover in comment, but Associations not always directly linked through memory or associational activity (cerebra cortex alone, has two general ranges of associational processing, as well as the signaling to and from brainstem and body vitally important to immediate survival, which inform our cognitive salience, creating emotions.
that mass of multisyllabic words should describe to you just HOW music may exercise signaling, juxtacrine, endocrine, exocrine, and thus emotional, signaling, including self-signaling.
I am enamoured of music, in ALL its world and temporal forms from as long ago as notation or imitation has preserved it. I realized recently how MANY musical courses I took , as many as majors in other disciplines have in their cv's.
Strange variations in what we call consonance occur across the human world, and having sent some years closely studying the Wolf, I recognize different communicative aesthetics and meanings. Cetaceans have increasingly been found to have and use signature calls, and many bird species communicate states, traits, and territories, as well as even health, age, and other individual variations.
The world is music, signaling meanings BEYOND what Pinker and others with limited backgrounds, may perceive. I cannot touch teh subject of even one species substantially, even should i attempt it, in comment.
It's so tempting to deny one's own imperfect nature