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Who are your favourite living thinkers / intellectuals?

Deleted User

It does not have to be a "brainiac" but someone that you always find worth checking what it says, despite agreeing or not.

One of them may be Sean Carroll for me. I should get some more. And Chomsky, but he is off the map now due to health issues.

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  • Nim Chimpsky, something of a towering intellect, for a non-human primate. Unfortunately deceased, however. So maybe Richard Dawkins, even though he has not mastered sign language, as far as I know..

  • in reply to Martin

    A little bit of language, at great effort, with very limited success. It is kind of evidence for his theory:

    """

    After reviewing the results, Terrace concluded that Nim mimicked signs from his teachers in order to get a reward. Nim learned a variety of signs through a process of reinforcement, but these signs were not a result of creative or spontaneous language use.

    """

    His theory is that we learning with poverty of stimulus means there is a LAD. The symmetries of languages across cultures also points to this. Chimps don't, or have a very primitive version. But anyways, interesting reminder.

    I find that some criticising him did not read him, nor know he is one of the most cited scholars ever. But he can indeed get things wrong as well, but this isnt one imho.

    I do suspect you were just joking but anyways, I like context.

  • in reply to Deleted User

    I think that the can of non-human primate intellectual abilities has been kicked down the road a very great distance. First, they couldn't use tools, then they could. Second, they couldn't make tools, then yes they can. Some even make 'spears' out of small branches for spearing bushbabies inside their tree-holes.

    It has been long known that Broca's and Wernicke's areas in great apes are lateralised, though not as obviously as in humans. Recent research has shown that chimpanzees in the wild are able to modify their communication by combining different basic calls. Call A, meaning resting, followed by call B, meaning 'affiliation', results in a new meaning, 'nesting', or 'nest-building'.

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  • in reply to Deleted User

    I think that the can of non-human primate intellectual abilities has been kicked down the road a very great distance. First, they couldn't use tools, then they could. Second, they couldn't make tools, then yes they can. Some even make 'spears' out of small branches for spearing bushbabies inside their tree-holes.

    It has been long known that Broca's and Wernicke's areas in great apes are lateralised, though not as obviously as in humans. Recent research has shown that chimpanzees in the wild are able to modify their communication by combining different basic calls. Call A, meaning resting, followed by call B, meaning 'affiliation', results in a new meaning, 'nesting', or 'nest-building'.

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