Steven Pinker on Human Nature | Big Think

Language

A good entrée into human natures

Chomsky 1950, language was a very good candidate for something that is innately and uniquely human.

Verbal learning

Mental algorithm and according to the rules, the words became meaningful.

An analogy that opened the mind

How did you get into your
line of work?

Steven is interested in human nature, human emotion, human motivation, implications for politics.

He went to Harvard, however he says that it was not a recomendable idea. He also took a couple of sabbaticals at Santa Barbara.

For Steven, Santa Barbara was the home to evolutionary psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology and economics.

What are you working on
right now?

Using languages as a
window into human nature

Steven is turning to the interface
between language and the rest of the mind.

Steven is interested on how language
can illuminate our social relationships.

Decoding metaphor

Does our language shows that we only think
metaphorical or it means that we think abstractactly and we need some kind of verbiage