Plato's, Orwell's, and Descartes' Problems

In this section, the speaker introduces three philosophical problems: Plato's problem, Orwell's problem, and Descartes' problem.

Three Philosophical Problems

• Plato's problem is how humans are able to know as much as they do despite their limited personal experiences.

• Orwell's problem is how humans with ample and reliable information at hand still understand so little.

• Descartes' problem has to do with freedom of choice and action unique to humans.

Human Creative Impulse

• Humans have the capacity to freely express their thoughts in constantly novel ways over an infinite range in a manner that's appropriate to circumstances but not caused by them.

• This capacity is shared by all humans and is called the infinite use of finite means or the creative use of language.

• These ideas were developed further in Marx's early manuscripts and have repeatedly animated popular movements.

Progress on Plato's Problem

• Bertrand Russell formulated Plato's problem as "how comes it that human beings whose contacts with the world are brief and personal are limited are nevertheless able to know as much as they do know."

• Leibniz found Plato's thesis convincing when formulated in terms of genetic endowment which is susceptible to study.

Limits of Human Understanding

• David Hume concluded that Isaac Newton drew the veil from some of the mysteries of nature while at the same time restoring nature’s ultimate secrets to obscurity where they ever did and ever will remain.

• The mechanical philosophy provided the criterion of intelligibility for Galileo and all early modern science including Newton who regarded his demolition of mechanical science as so great an absurdity that he believed no man who has in philosophical matters the competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.

• Understanding is given a sharp meaning and is construed in terms of intelligibility to the human mind with its own limits.

Newton's Principles and the Intelligibility of the World

This section discusses Newton's principles and his inability to explain gravity, which led him to restrict his subject to mathematical principles. It also explores how science lowered its goals over time, abandoning the idea that the world is intelligible.

Newton's Principles

• Newton's principles were occult but not a cult in the sense of scholastics.

• He postulated causes that were occult but hoped they might be discovered.

• Scientists continued to seek a mechanical corpuscular explanation of gravity, which is what they took to be a physical explanation.

The Intelligibility of the World

• As the impact of Newton's discoveries was absorbed, science lowered its goals and restricted itself to constructing theories that are intelligible.

• By Bertrand Russell's analysis in 1927, he dismisses the very idea of an intelligible world as an absurdity.

• Modern science began from a different perspective when Galileo and others were willing to be puzzled by even simple phenomena of nature.

• In psychology, discoveries seem routine as if we always knew them or believed we did.

Limits on Curiosity

The limits on curiosity in the study of language and mental processes have been prevalent for 2500 years. This has stifled inquiry into language and other mental processes, much like how the natural sciences were curtailed before puzzlement about simple phenomena became the norm.

Historical Context

• Limits on curiosity in the study of language and mental processes have been prevalent for 2500 years.

• The natural sciences were curtailed before puzzlement about simple phenomena became the norm.

• Historians of science recognize that Newton's discoveries set forth a new view of science where the goal is to find the best theoretical account we can of experience and experiment.

Constructive Skepticism

• Science proceeds by doubting our abilities to find grounds for our knowledge while accepting and increasing knowledge itself.

• This approach is called constructive skepticism, which recognizes that we can never be sure to know all answers but can take steps towards answering them.

Anti-foundationalism

• Anti-foundationalism is regarded as a courageous battle cry in contemporary intellectual culture, despite being dismissed in the 17th century.

• Descartes recognized cognitive limits, stating that if our intellect cannot gain good enough intuition, we must stop there.

• There are mysteries beyond cognitive reach that should not question authenticity of experience.

Science Without Metaphysics

• If explanation lies beyond cognitive grasp, it should give no warrant for questioning authenticity of experience.

• Free actions of people are undetermined; it would be absurd to doubt this because it conflicts with something else which we know to be in its nature incomprehensible to us.

• There are mysteries of this kind, and it is a topic subject to empirical inquiry.

The Limits of Human Understanding

This section discusses the limits of human understanding and how it relates to our cognitive abilities.

David Hume's Mitigated Skepticism

• David Hume pursued mitigated skepticism, recognizing that much of animal and human knowledge must be derived from the original hand of nature.

• The original hand of nature is what we would call genetic endowment, which provides the means for experimental reasoning that guides scientific inquiry.

• According to Hume, whatever lies beyond our intellectual faculties is far beyond the level of accessibility to consciousness.

Charles Sanders Purse's Abduction

• Charles Sanders Purse recognized that attaining theories requires some principle rooted in our nature which puts a limit on admissible hypotheses.

• He believed that this human capacity for abduction is a reliable guide to grasping the truth of the world.

• However, no selectional process made it possible for Galileo and his successors to construct theoretical explanations that may or may not approach the truth of the world.

Philosophers' Speculations on Nature

• Great figures such as Newton and Locke speculated about mysteries in nature in ways that have resonance today even though we don't use their terms.

• Newton thought that an unknown force called spirit may be responsible for all movement in nature including moving our body by thoughts.

• Locke concluded that we cannot say matter does not think given our incurable ignorance and cognitive limitations.

Joseph Priestley's Work on Thinking Matter

This section discusses Joseph Priestley's work on thinking matter and how it relates to Locke's repugnant idea.

Joseph Priestley's Work

• Joseph Priestley developed the idea of thinking matter, which was repugnant to Locke's idea of senseless matter.

• He believed that the mind is a property of matter and that all mental processes are physical in nature.

• His work on thinking matter led to important developments in science and philosophy.

Introduction to the Explanatory Gap

This section discusses the explanatory gap between physical and consciousness. It also mentions the debate about Universal Grammar (UG) and its properties.

The Explanatory Gap

• Darwin questioned why thought being a secretion of the brain is more wonderful than matter having gravity as a property.

• There is an explanatory gap between physical and consciousness that has not been resolved.

• Newton's discovery of an explanatory gap may be a permanent mystery for humans.

Universal Grammar Debate

• Genetic endowment, external data, and laws of nature are factors involved in growth and development in any domain.

• Universal Grammar (UG) exists, which is sometimes called genetic endowment for language acquisition.

• There are no defenders of the hypothesis that UG exists because it can hardly be doubted.

• The only serious question is what are the properties of UG and how do they interact with other factors in growth and development.

Properties of Universal Grammar

This section continues discussing the debate about Universal Grammar (UG), its properties, and objections against it.

Objections Against UG

• Critics condemn what they call the innateness hypothesis despite UG's existence being a truism.

• Little is known about the neural circuitry involved in language faculty either before or after experience as determined by UG.

Properties of UG

• The neurophysiology of insects' navigational capacities and communication systems is far simpler than that of language faculty yet research into their properties has never been questioned despite little being known about their neurophysiology.

• C.R Galistel argues that traditional inquiry into neurophysiology, psychology, computational linguistics, and philosophy have been looking in the wrong place when studying associative bonds and synaptic conductance. Instead, he suggests that they should start looking for elementary units of computation with the properties that enter into any kind of computational system. These properties are quite appropriate to the tasks at hand, even for insects and likely humans too.

Discovering Mechanisms in Free Choice of Action

This section discusses how we can try to discover the mechanisms used in free choice of action, including creative use of language.

Discovering Mechanisms in Free Choice of Action

• We can try to discover the finite means that enter into infinite use in Humboldt's formula.

• Descartes' problem may be beyond human inquiry forever.

Creative Use of Language

• We can try to discover the mechanisms used in creative use of language, which is an example of free choice of action.

Introduction to Language and Computational Procedure

In this section, the speaker introduces a computational procedure that generates an infinite range of hierarchically structured expressions that provide instructions for two language external systems: the sensory motor system and the systems of thought and action.

The Computational Procedure

• The internal computational procedure is sometimes called a generative grammar or more perspicuously an internal language.

• The computational procedure provides information for the phonetic interface and the semantic pragmatic interface all parts of our body in that way.

• Merge is incorporated somehow in any such procedure which takes two objects already generated and forms from them a new object.

• Reapplying merge over and over again we obtain an infinity of hierarchically structured expressions.

Conflict between Computational Efficiency and Communicative Efficiency

In this section, the speaker discusses how there's a conflict between computational efficiency and communicative efficiency when it comes to language design.

Merge Operation

• There's a conflict between computational efficiency and communicative efficiency when it comes to language design.

• Considerations of computational efficiency yield the right results at the somatic pragmatic interface for thought and action but they harm communication.

• Merge is in fact clearly a universal property of the human mind brain today but our early ancestors lacked that property hence at some point in the past not very remote past some mutation must have taken place perhaps very slight which rewired the brain to yield this capacity to yield this operation merge.

• Mutations take place in an individual not in a group, so at some point, the property would be shared by enough people in a small breeding group and we come from very small groups maybe a few thousand individuals that could.

Conclusion

In this section, the speaker concludes that merge is a universal property of the human mind brain today but our early ancestors lacked that property hence at some point in the past not very remote past some mutation must have taken place perhaps very slight which rewired the brain to yield this capacity to yield this operation merge.

Language Design

• Merge is a universal property of the human mind brain today but our early ancestors lacked that property hence at some point in the past not very remote past some mutation must have taken place perhaps very slight which rewired the brain to yield this capacity to yield this operation merge.

• The person who underwent this mutation could exploit existing conceptual capacities to think, interpret, plan over an unbounded range.

Language and Evolution

In this section, the speaker discusses the complexity of language acquisition and externalization. They argue that there is no empirical evidence for intermediate stages in language evolution and that language is designed for computational efficiency rather than communication.

Language Acquisition

• To learn a second language, one must acquire vocabulary, inflectional systems, linear order, etc.

• However, no one can learn syntactic or semantic rules since our knowledge of them is beyond consciousness.

• There are no intermediate stages in language acquisition; it's an all-or-nothing affair.

Evolutionary Theory

• There is no empirical evidence or conceptual justification for intermediate stages in language evolution.

• The idea of gradual steps in evolution is a popular misconception called "pop Darwinism."

• Catastrophism (i.e., sudden change) is necessary to move from finite to infinite.

• Design considerations and evolutionary considerations converge to yield the conclusion that language is designed for computational efficiency but inefficient for communication.

Plato's Problem

• Plato's problem falls within those parts of biology that we know how to study.

• Descartes' problem remains beyond reach.

The Nato Bombing of Serbia

This section discusses the illegality and legitimacy of the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Illegality and Legitimacy

• The prestigious specialists in international law led by Richard Goldstone determined that the bombing was illegal but legitimate.

• The panel found this war crime to be legitimate because there was no other way to stop the killings and atrocities in Kosovo.

• Non-aligned countries bitterly rejected it, condemned the bombing, and called it just more posturing of Western imperialism with its civilizing missions.

• To reach its conclusion that there was no other way to stop the killings and atrocities in Kosovo, the panel had to reverse chronology and reject unanimous conclusions of a mass of impeccable Western studies.

Evidence

• The evidence reveals unambiguously that the killings and atrocities were overwhelmingly the consequence of the bombing, not the cause.

• Wesley Clark informed the press as the bombing began that atrocities on the ground were predictable.

• The indictment of Milosevic which was issued right in midst of bombing revealed facts are all post-bombing with one exception which meant absolutely nothing to attackers because at that very moment they were supporting comparable atrocities carried out by their allies.

Western Intellectual Culture

• Fallacious conclusion of Goldstone panel is almost universally accepted in western intellectual culture in complete disregard for unusually rich documentary record.

• Rational discussion of this matter is virtually impossible in the West. Any mention of these uncontroversial facts elicits the most impressive tantrums and that's understandable.

• Educated classes have resorted to slanders, lies, hysteria, denunciation all of them virtually unanswerable given the near monopoly of control over expression in this case it even includes the

The Origins of the Public Relations Industry

This section discusses the origins of the public relations industry and how it was created to control attitudes and beliefs.

Elite Circles Recognize Need for Control

• By World War I, elite circles in England and the United States recognized that popular struggles had achieved so much success that the population could no longer be easily controlled by force.

• It became necessary to control attitudes and beliefs among other devices.

Creation of Public Relations Industry

• A huge industry was created to fulfill this task called the public relations industry, primarily a U.S. secondarily British invention later taken over elsewhere.

• Edward Bernays is one of its leading figures.

Engineering Consent

• Bernays observed that "the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society."

• He believed that only intelligent minorities could understand mental processes and social patterns of the masses, which allowed them to pull wires controlling public opinion.

• This process he called engineering consent, which is essential to democracy.

Liberal Intellectuals as Instruments of Propaganda

This section discusses how liberal intellectuals served as instruments of propaganda during Woodrow Wilson's presidency.

Committee on Public Information

• Woodrow Wilson's committee on public information was the first U.S. state propaganda agency.

• The committee was part of a campaign where liberal intellectuals undertook to serve as faithful interpreters for one of the greatest enterprises ever undertaken by an American president: entering World War I after being elected on a promise of peace without victory.

British Propaganda Targets American Intellectuals

• The British recognized that they needed to direct thoughts, particularly those of American intellectuals, in order to bring America into World War I.

• They targeted liberal American intellectuals who were adopting good Wilsonian doctrine.

Elite of Gentlemen with Elevated Ideals

• Wilson's own view was that an elite of gentlemen with elevated ideals is necessary to preserve stability and righteousness.

• It's the intelligent minority of responsible men who must control decision-making.

Controlling the Masses for Their Own Good

This section discusses how intellectuals believed that controlling the masses was necessary for their own good.

Sound Public Opinion

• Harold Lasswell, one of the founders of modern political science, explained that the intelligent few must recognize the ignorance and stupidity of the masses who have to be controlled for their own good.

• A specialized class of public men is responsible for forming a sound public opinion.

Spectators of Action

• Walter Lippman, leading American public intellectual of the 20th century, explained that "the public must be put in its place...its function in a democracy is to be spectators of action, not participants."

• The public may act but only by aligning itself as partisan with someone in a position to act executively in periodic exercises called elections.

Solving Orwell's Problem

In this section, the speaker discusses how the problem presented by Orwell can be easily solved at an intellectual level. However, he explains why the solution to the problem has little impact on the dominant intellectual and moral culture.

The Solution to Orwell's Problem

• Plato's and Descartes' problem is easily solved at an intellectual level.

• The solution to the problem has little impact within the dominant intellectual and moral culture.

• The speaker suggests that there are obvious tasks for those who do not accept the guiding principles of this culture.