Steven Pinker - The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature - YouTube

loaded by theRSAorg on Feb 4, 2010

For Steven Pinker, the brilliance of the mind lies in the way it uses just two processes to turn the finite building blocks of our language into infinite meanings. The first is metaphor: we take a concrete idea and use it as a stand-in for abstract thoughts. The second is combination: we combine ideas according to rules, like the syntactic rules of language, to create new thoughts out of old ones.

Note - This video contains strong language.

Category:

Education

License:

Standard YouTube License

Steven Pinker - The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S1d3cNge24&feature=related