• so far, so good people online, you can hear me right thumbs up if you can.
• Maybe you can't hear me. Oh, yeah, okay, good. Alright. And so
• for those who either weren't here last time, or you were online and you missed it.
• I I thought I was recording things and I could post it later. But I wasn't. But I've got a recording now, in case things go down what we were discussing last time is just what people think morality is. And so some people said, what's your name in the back again? Yeah.
• yeah, Alex said, Oh, well, you know, it's like, what's right and wrong. And then I was using the example of Okay, well, suppose I'm up here picking my nose and even eating it, you know, looking right? Most people say, well, that's wrong. You shouldn't do that, but they wouldn't say it's a moral right. And then then we had a suggestion that
• that. Well, it's a matter of values. And different people value different things some people wouldn't necessarily value. You know, puts such a strong value on whether or not you pick your nose, so maybe that's not immoral, and so forth, and that sort of makes it rather subjective, that you know. Well, it's all a matter of what you what you value
• right. And then I said, Well, there's this guy. He gets drunk. He comes home. He beats his wife black and blue, and then he rapes her. And it's like, Yeah, here we don't agree with that. We have, you know, one set of values. But you know there's this other culture where they think it's perfectly fine for you know men to beat their husband to beat their wives, and they don't have to, you know, get the wife's
• consent for sex. They can just force themselves upon her. And you know, then that's how they operate in that society. And then I asked, would that be okay? And it's like.
• no, that's not okay, right? That people tend to think of something's immoral that is universally immoral right and then II gave the definitions that Jonathan Hak is in the first reading, and one was by Elioturi sort of notions of justice, rights, welfare that relate to others, and even hate had a sort of definition that
• morality is for building social communities and so forth.
• And what did they both have in common? Well, what they both have in common is that has to do with the social world in some sort of way, right? And then I, you know, which is sort of interesting, because the example I came
• up with against that was one of Jonathan hates own examples from a studies he'd he's done. Which is this guy? He goes and buys the chicken from the grocery store like a you know, a roasting chicken from the grocery store takes at home, masturbates into it, cooks and eat it right? And you know, is that okay? And you know, is that just like picking your nose and eating it, and
• a lot of people, maybe not you, but a lot of people. No, no, no, no, no, that's just wrong. That's morally wrong. You shouldn't do it. It doesn't. It's not different strokes for different folks, and so forth. Now you might not be somebody who, you know, has quite that.
• Take on it. But a lot of people do right. But my point, there is
• nobody else is involved.
• Right? It's not social. It's in the comfort of his own, the privacy of his own home, and so forth, right so, at least for some people. Morality
• isn't strictly social, and so what I sort of suggested there is that maybe
• what also comes into play with morality is a sense of suffering, that if somebody's if somebody can suffer, then something might be immoral. And what's happening in this case is that the guy's degrading himself, and in a certain way he suffers by degrading himself in that way. And I'm not necessarily committed to any of the I'd like
• hates view that morality is for building communities. Has a lot of appeal to me. The the idea that morality is about avoiding
• suffering in, particularly in others. Has its appeal to me. The point that I wanted to really get across in the first lecture, although I didn't quite get there is just
• there is a lot of disagreement on morality. Right? It's it's people have been thinking about it for thousands of years, and we still haven't got to the point of you know where everybody agrees on it. There's a lot of disagreement. I guess. Part of the reason why I think that there's I'd sort of argue why that's so is
• One argument you might make is sort of what's morality is like a hodgepodge. It's not one thing that there's a whole bunch of different little things.
• and whether or not they really do have anything in common. Is sort of up in the air, right? And that's the sort of
• a bit of the approach I'm going to take in this class that there are several different things that come into play in morality, and it's not like overlay. No, it's like
• there's like this sort of morality, that sort of morality, that sort of morality I'm gonna have, like 3 different sorts of moralities. And then the question, you know, that arises within a culture within a person? Whatever is well, which of these 3 should be using? Should we be using in these situations? Right? And that's sort of the
• the task that confronts the child and so forth, to figure out, you know, in my culture, in this situation, what are the rules that we're using and what I want to talk about today is sort of how to think about that, how to think about. You know, this task of learning the rules of your culture right? And there's sort of 2 different. So the thing is is that I talk a little bit about content. But you know, so there.
• mental.
• not mental. I don't want mental, moral, sorry. There are moral rules.
• So let me put this up and then check with the people online. More
• was moral
• content. you see that? Okay, online
• thumbs up if you can. Oh, okay, yeah, it's in the continent. Let me get the comments going.
• You just say.
• Okay, alright. So
• so content is it's sort of like the stuff of the substance of a belief or an idea, or whatever. So what the idea is about, and so forth. And so you can have, you know.
• beliefs, ideas, thoughts, whatever about morality. That would be the
• moral content, and so forth. Right? And then the question is, Well, where's the where does this come from?
• And I'm going to contrast 2 different ways of thinking about this, because in this class I take a very particular way of thinking about this. But it's not the norm, it's not the it's. It's not what you would have encountered before, because it seems counterintuitive. is the sort of internalization.
• And the other way I'll call for want to
• particular sort of term. I'll call it projection.
• right? So internalization. Should
• internalization should sound familiar to it goes something like this, right. So you have a little baby here.
• Alright and they don't know anything. You know. The sort of term that often gets used is, you know, it's a blanks. Baby's a blank slate.
• right? They have no ideas in their head.
• right? And then they, you know.
• see people interacting in their world
• right? And so I'll do arrows interacting here.
• And not only that.
• you know, mom.
• she says things about what they're doing to help the baby learn what you know
• what's going on in this situation. And the baby, then, you know. internalizes
• doesn't have to be a baby can be a child, you know. So the mom has this idea.
• right? That idea is with respect to this, and then by internalizing. And now the baby's got the idea in their head. Right? So there was no no moral beliefs, no moral notions, concepts anything in the baby's head. In the first place, right? All of this actions happening out there in the world, and the task of the child is to take that
• and put it inside their head right? So there is what's called a standard social, scientific model.
• or has been called that standard
• social model. And what does the standard social, scientific model say? It says that there is this division of labor that happens in the social sciences. So there is psychology.
• But I'm just gonna use the psych symbol.
• There's psychology. And then there is, you know, a variety of other disciplines, like sociology.
• anthropology.
• etc. And what's that? Distinction? Well, psychology studies, learning mechanisms.
• And these study cultural content?
• Right? So all this stuff, this content, the you know the stuff of your beliefs that the substance of your beliefs and so forth. That's out there in the culture
• right and the people who study that are the sociologists and anthropologists, so forth. They tell you what that content is.
• where it comes from. So forth. What the psychologists do is they tell you how this stuff
• gets internalized via these learning mechanisms.
• Right? So there's this division of labor. Psychology has nothing to say about any of this cultural content among it. Amongst the cultural content is this moral content right? What psychology will tell you is how you get that stuff out there in the social world
• into your head. Okay.
• well.
• that's the sign standard, social scientific model. The people that propose this contrast that with something that they call the integrated causal model.
• And it works rather differently. It's
• It suggests that a lot of the the content is actually in people's heads to begin with.
• Right? So yes, there are social interactions
• out there in the world.
• But these social interactions are actually in our way.
• projections
• of the ideas that are in people's heads, not entirely, but to a large extent, right?
• So this sort of view, from the psychological point of view, it takes all these social interactions for granted. Uhhuh.
• Oh, integrated causal model.
• Yeah, yeah, so definitely interrupt. People online, too. If you can't read something, just let me know right?
• And so what you're doing is you have these ideas already, and then you project them out onto the world. And in so projecting them you bring about the world, the social world. Right?
• And you know one of the one of the reasons. Well, I'll I'll get to it later. Just
• well, a lot. A lot of the recorded lecture is like making arguments for why learning, as you normally think about it, doesn't really work.
• Okay? So II in there, I it's it's sort of buried away in in things a lot. But I talk about the differences between Non Chomsky, the linguist, and Bf. Skinner. The behaviorists. Right? Anybody need this on the board. Still.
• no, I can erase it.
• Okay. So I wanna
• put that up here.
• So the thing is is that you know a lot of you. You go. Oh, well, he's talking about nature versus nurture
• alright, and not really to. To put it that way people are. People are not debating nature versus nurtured, regardless of what you've been told. That is not.
• That is not a real debate. and I'll try to explain why. So we've got Chomsky.
• and we've got Skinner
• right?
• Do you really need to know who Tansy and Skinner are? No, not really just. You need to know that Chomsky is the nature Guy
• and Skinner is the nurture guy
• right? And the particular thing that they sort of came together on and are like debated on was language so like in 1957 or so in the 1950 S.
• Bf, Skinner wrote a book on on language and language actualization. It called it's called verbal behavior, right?
• And Chomsky, the linguist, wrote this really devastating critique of that book. and a lot of people say that one of the founding sort of documents of cognitive science was Chomsky's review of Skinner's book on language
• which he called verbal behavior right? Anyhow. So
• What? What what a lot of people think
• Chomsky was saying, in that debate is that? Well, Skinner is saying, language is learned
• and Chomsky is saying, language is a name.
• and one of the things where I'm you know. I was about to sort of say stuff before, and then I'm like, Oh, no, I'll pull back. I'll say it later. Want to say it later still. But you know 1 one of the sort of
• things that would lead you to believe, at least initially, that language is innate, is you only see it in humans.
• right?
• So why is it that you only see it in humans? Well, you might go. There's something about human biology that's different from. But dog biology, cat, biology, cow biology that makes it possible for us
• to use language, but not other species see? Because the thing is is that one of the things that Skinner thought was that these learning mechanisms. They're not just in humans.
• They're in dogs and cats, and so forth. So, for instance, anybody know about Skinner, how he did his studies.
• So
• if you take an intro psych oh, just wait. What about online? Anybody?
• How? How did? Oh, just wait. Who's muted?
• Oh, no, okay. But never mind. How how do? How did behaviorists go about so the criminology students might be going. What is this but the psychology students? How? How did the behaviors go about doing their studies? No, not not necessarily monkeys. Some of them might have done monkeys.
• But you get the gist.
• Okay, so rats were one. But Skinner actually didn't use rats.
• Do you know the other thing?
• Skinner used pigeons right? But the thing is, they studied learning by looking at other species.
• Right? Why would you use these other species because
• they're easy. You can put them in a box. You just give them some food, and you set this. Skinner had what we call this Skinner box right? So
• I mean, I don't think he called us Skinner Box, but everybody else did right because he invented it. Now, Skinner, like I said did it with pigeons. But everybody's familiar with the rats. So I'm gonna do a rat Skinner box right? So you have this this like cage that you put a rat in. And then there's this bar here.
• right there's a bar
• and
• You've got a really simple task. The Rat just has to press the bar
• right, and when it presses the bar, then there's a food Hopper called it.
• Let me write that clearly, because Hopper is not a word, you see, every day. But there's this food, Hopper. And so you set up this quote unquote schedule of reinforcement where, if the rat presses the bar. Maybe your schedule reinforcement is every time it presses the bar
• it gets the food pellet.
• but maybe it's like every fifth time it presses the bar. Or maybe you know
• randomly about every 5 times it gets the food, or you know, you can have these different schedules of reinforcement right? And of course in here is this rat.
• That's a horrible looking app that looks. I'm not gonna say what that looks like.
• Whatever has got a head on it.
• Okay? So you got a rat in there and it's gonna press that bar to get the food right. So why did he use rats in in these in these cages.
• You can't do that with an undergrad. You can't put an undergrad in a room and like put a bar on one side, and you know you keep it in there for days on end, and every time it presses that you know, you give it a chocolate bar or something like that. That's unethical, right?
• But it wasn't just that, Skinner thought. It doesn't matter if you're talking about rats. If you're talking about humans, it's all the same learning mechanism
• right? No, there's there's something special about humans, right? And that's the sort of normally anateness.
• tends to support the idea that well, not always, but tends to support the idea that maybe there might be certain things that are special about humans, about their biology and so forth. Right? Anyhow, that's getting a little bit off track here for a sec. So
• you're asking Skinner and Chomsky to explain language right?
• And the sort of stereotype is that
• Skinner says everything about languages learn. And Chomsky says that everything about languages an a right. So then we asked, Chomsky. okay.
• what about the word trumpet?
• Are you born knowing what trumpet means
• right? Or is that something that you have to learn? what would you say? Are you born knowing what the word trumpet means?
• Now I'll tell you. There is a philosopher that thought that every single word in the English language you're born knowing, or at least the concept behind it.
• That's
• somebody I might mention later, Jerry Foter. But
• no, you might go. Well, look, there are children in Japan that don't know what the word trumpet means. Clearly the reason for that is, they've never learned that word, whereas English speaking kids to the extent that they know what trumpet means is because they learned it
• right? So some things are learned here.
• some bits of language.
• And even that's maybe just starting things a little bit. For reasons we'll see.
• Okay? So
• yeah, it would seem. Oh, okay. So I see you can't have this fully innate view of things. Because well, then, you get into these bizarre situations where children are born knowing what trumpet means, and clearly that's not the case right?
• But then so okay, so, so
• chomsky language is innate, but some things are alert.
• Oh, I already have that there, I'll just keep it alright.and then well, what about Char? And what about Skinner?
• So language is learned. He thought it was learned with something called operon conditioning.
• And that's just reinforcement learning. So you do some behavior. right? And
• 2 things can happen here.
• So if it's rewarded.
• then the behavior goes up. and if it's punished.
• the behavior goes down
• alright. And then Skinner actually use the term reinforced right? If it's reinforced, it'll increase that behavior right?
• And he thought through this process of learning. So the the baby like babbles right? And the mother's listening to this, and some at 1 point the baby. Sorry. Go, ma. And did you say, Mom, did you say, mom?
• Right? And then, so the baby is rewarded, and it's more likely to say, mama, right and
• you know, through that sort of process. You can build up your language. Right? Okay? So what are we gonna ask Skinner about this? Well.
• this whole sort of system here. right.
• rocks don't do that
• right. So there's got to be like some sort of gizmo or something in in people's heads and rats, heads and pigeons heads that makes this possible
• right? Because otherwise, if if if this operate conditioning is just
• comes out of thin air, well, rocks should learn too, right, but they don't.
• So there has to be
• some operand conditioning mechanism.
• you know. Maybe there's a part of the brain that does this, or something like that right?
• Anybody lost by that anybody lost that if if people or some sort of organism
• are learning.
• be it by operant conditioning or whatever, there's gotta be some mechanism that makes that learning possible. Otherwise, anything could learn even a rock.
• Right? Does that make sense?
• Okay. question for Skinner is.
• is this learned? Or is this a name? Where does this learning mechanism come from?
• And what does Skinner have to say?
• No one?
• Well, let's put it this way, let's say, Skinner says, Oh, no, this thing.
• this is learned.
• Okay, so you learn this.
• So
• so you learn operant conditioning.
• So you're not born with the ability to offer and conditioning offering condition. But you acquire that you learn that ability how to learn by offering conditioning.
• You see, any problems with that Well. anything can learn it unless
• you need a mechanism to do that.
• So we don't want to have this situation where anything can learn even a rock.
• So you have to have a operand conditioning
• mechanism. Learner, right? An opera conditioning, learning, device or something. Acquisition device will say, right? So now we have
• another learning mechanism here. and then we ask, oh, well, is this learned R. Innate? Oh, well, of course you learn that right.
• And how do you learn that? Oh, well, you see, you have a mechanism for learning that otherwise, then rocks can learn it
• right well. This is called an infinite regress. You have a learning mechanism to learn, a learning mechanism, to learn a learning mechanism, but you will had your hand up. Did you want to
• it? Circular is not quite the word. But you you got the right intuition right? Th, this is gonna lead to some ridiculous outcome.
• So what does Skinner say? He said, no, no, no, this is a name it's not learned.
• Okay, now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Chomsky is saying. Things are innate, and Skinner's saying that things are learned. And now what? What do we have like?
• Oh, no, no, no, no! You see, some things are learned, and some things aren't a. Some things are learned and some things aren't a
• so it's like.
• so what's the difference? I thought there was this huge debate between like nature and nurture? Are things learned, or are they in need? But when you press the true extreme people, they sound the same.
• except they're not the same.
• Do you know what makes them different.
• I wouldn't expect you to get this. What makes them difference is.
• what's the learning mechanism here? And what's the learning mechanism here? I told you what the learning mechanism is here. I told you a few things about it. I told you that this thing is found in rats, pigeons, humans.
• any sort of, you know.
• animal with a backbone sort of thing, and even animals that don't have backbones might do this like, you know, you might expect something like a jellyfish even to learn in this way. Right?
• Whereas
• here, what did it? What was the argument I was making? Oh, well, you see, humans learn language, but dogs and cats don't
• right.
• And so what does that suggest? Well, what it suggests is
• this, learning mechanism, offering, conditioning is not specialized. It's just a general learning mechanism that you can use to learn anything
• doesn't matter what it is. Any sort of behavior.
• This thing will cause you to learn it.
• whereas here, what Chomsky actually proposed. he didn't say that language is an ape. What he said is that there is a language acquisition device.
• and this is actual words that he used.
• And what is this language? Acquisition, device? It's a language learning mechanism. But the thing is, it's only for language.
• That's the only thing that it's good for. It's just for learning language.
• So there is a real debate between the 2 of them. But it's not nature versus nurture.
• I'm sure you've heard, you know. Oh, there's this nature nurture, debate, sort of thing. It's like no, that that that whole debate is just deeply, deeply confused.
• You know most people both sides think that there is learning.
• Most people on both sides
• think that those learning mechanisms are innate.
• The question is, how special purpose are they?
• Is it first restricted little thing like language, or is it? No, it's use
• to learn anything. It's used by different species, and so forth.
• Chomsky thought that the learning mechanisms are specialized. And notice, I said, mechanisms where, as Skinner thought, that the learning mechanism
• is a name. so
• the thing is, if you have one learning mechanism that you can use to learn anything. How many of those do you need
• need one? The one thing does it all right.
• whereas here you need several.
• Right? Because well, you learn language with the language acquisition device.
• But you know.
• how did you learn, you know, to find your way around in the world. Like to. You know. Navigate, you know, through space and so forth. Well, that's not language. You would need something else to learn that, like, you know, you learned, you know how you get from point A to B, if you constantly do that, and so forth. You, you learn the sort of lay of the land, and so on. Right?
• So the the sort of nature sort aside is
• what people think of. The nature sort of side is that there are these specialized learning mechanisms, and there's many of them you need, because there's different things that you can learn right?
• And then on the nurture side. No, there's just one mechanism, and it does everything.
• So then we get into another example that I like using which is so now. Now now then, hopefully, what I think you see. Well.
• hopefully, you see the debate better now for what the debate really is not. It's not nature versus nurture it's like, are the mechanisms in our head? Are they specialized, are they not? And part of you know what
• sort of characterizes that specialization
• is content.
• Right? What are the contents that are being learned by these memory, Mac. Sorry learning mechanisms? Right? Are you learning
• any sort of contents? Or are you learning only like a restricted range of contents? Right?
• And anyhow. So then, it's like, Okay, now that we've okay, anybody lost on like on that. How? How nature versus nurture is really not about our things, learned Rna. It's about how specialized those learning mechanisms are
• anybody lost on that?
• No. Okay. So then the question is, well, what's the better view
• now that we properly framed the debate which one's got more going for it.
• Okay? So we'll just switch this completely to a different sort of question. Which is, you go into your kitchen right?
• I've used this before I use this. I
• I use this in my inquiry class, I think. I use this in all my classes. But you go into your kitchen right? And how many of you in your kitchen have the appliance.
• And what is that? Well, it's the thing that you know cooks your food. It freezes your food. It opens. Cans it? Microwaves your food. It washes your dishes, the one machine that does it all.
• Anybody have that
• no one has that. Now. Why does nobody have that?
• Well. let's reframe the question. Why doesn't it exist then?
• Now imagine it did exist? That would probably be a like
• a top seller. Right. Why have all these separate devices in your kitchen when you can just have the one thing that does it all right. Uhhuh.
• See, here's the thing
• you might cheat, and you might go. Oh, well, let's just take my fridge and take my stove, and I weld them together. See, that's the one machine that cooks and keeps it cool like. No, you are cheating there.
• and I'll get to that cheat, though. because that cheat confuses people right? So why is it that you can't have? You know the the one machine that does it all?
• Well, what do you use? Okay, so you know I should. I should repeat things for people online, and and that I don't know if you hear
• so well. So the suggestion was, it would use a lot of power.
• Well, why would you expect that to use any more power than your fridge and your stove would separately?
• I don't know why that would use more power.
• Well, your fridge is always on right.
• No, that's that's true. But you know, if you think about
• you know, think of like a Swiss Army knife, right? Which is sort of where I'm going versus you know your typical pocket knife with only one blade right
• now. The Swiss army knife has all these specialized little blades and device, you know Gizmos with it, whereas your standard pocket knife only has that one blade right? And so, if if you have your. I got you in the set right. If you have your standard sort of pocket knife with the one blade.
• Well, you're going to have to use it on many different tasks. But you're not always using it right? So you could imagine that this appliance you're not always using it right? So
• I don't. I don't think you would really have to use any more energy for that than you would. You know. with all these separate devices, right? You run system
• like they are.
• whatever.
• Yeah. So the suggestion was, well, I think you're sort of saying, because they're smaller, they're easier to combine them.
• I don't know about that. But let's let's let's go with the Swiss army knife. So you know, as a standard pocket knife has a blade right?
• It's it's got a knife. What does the Swiss army knife have that? That doesn't? Okay. A bottle opener.
• You can open bottles with a knife.
• So why would you need a bottle over there?
• This roll off about of like money. People make things to make it easier for them to have more money.
• How does you mean I'm trying to get the how the money comes in here.
• If you got the choice of just the appliance that does it all.
• or a whole bunch of different gizmos. Presumably you wouldn't
• be so stupid as to buy all the separate gizmos. You would buy the appliance that does at all right, so I don't know
• why that would. Necessarily the the person who builds the one thing that does it all is probably going to get all the money, not the person. It's like
• what you're trying to sell me a can opener. Why do I need a can opener? I have this thing that does everything.
• I'll buy that thing
• right?
• either. It doesn't act.
• We'll say, could you not? Are we

Yeah, yeah, there's something to that which I'll which I'll get to. So for people online, the suggestion was, Well, isn't the kitchen the appliance that does everything. But still, within that appliance that does everything. There are separate gizmos that do their separate things. Right? So yeah, I'll grant you. It's you know, when you combine it all together.

• It's like a Swiss army knife. Right?
• The you can say, well, the Swiss army knife is, you know, the appliance that does everything.
• But within that Swiss army knife, or all the specialized blades. There's a bottle opener, the can opener, whatever.
• if you put up like an oven, for example. The other consultant views are.
• And and you know it is possible. You know, they they distinguish between the range and the oven that you know the heating things on top. That's a range, and then the oven. You know where you stick things in you. You combine those separate, you know they don't have to be combined. Want to say some.
• Is it because each appliance doesn't specialize.
• geared towards a specific task exactly each. Each appliance is specialized. But but not only that. What do you mean by geared towards a specific task
• intended to do? It's one thing yeah.
• can't wash dishes. But email.
• okay, that's what I'm looking for. But you know, would the word, the term I would use is functional incompatibility.
• something that is designed specifically for heating up food can't keep it cold.
• and if you try to design something that did both, it would do neither. Well.
• so like on the Swiss army knife. Why is there a corkscrew?
• There is a corkscrew, because it's better for taking corks out of a wine bottle than just a flat blade. So you build into something that's specialized for doing just that one task.
• But by virtue of being specialized for just that one test, you can't use it, for it's it's really difficult to cut things with the corkscrew right, but is really good for taking cork out of a wine bottle
• right? And so as you specialize something for solving one task really? Well, it makes it really bad at solving other tasks.
• and you might go well. Can't you split the difference. Well, you split the difference, and then you have nothing that works really well. right, you know there's there's the expression. I don't know if you've ever heard a Jack of all trades is a master of none.
• Right? So somebody who, you know, is generally good at everything is, you know, not a master of anything right?
• And so so when you go to your kitchen. you don't find the one thing that does it all
• because it doesn't exist. Why doesn't exist, because if it did exist it would do none of those tasks. Well.
• whereas if you want to heat up food, an oven, does that really well. it's designed specifically for doing that, does it? Well.
• right? It's not well designed for washing dishes.
• and if you tried to get something that did both.
• it would just be a disaster. It wouldn't really do all that. Well, right. The fact that everybody's kitchen has all these specialized devices tells you there's some sort of engineering principle here, some sort of design principle that's probably universal.
• And why should the human mind be any different?
• If if humans have to solve various different problems. So what's going on in the kitchen? Right? In fact, why are there kitchens right? How many of you keep your fridge in your bathroom.
• No one. Why not?
• What about what about your dishwasher? Any of you keep that in your bedroom
• now you might live in a one room, apartment, or something where you have to, but I think if you had your choice, you probably don't keep your dishwasher
• in your bedroom.
• For some reason all of these things are kept in one room. Why are they kept in one room?
• for convenience? See what all these things are sort of related to in one way or another is processing food
• right? So your fridge keeps the food cold and the stove heats the food up and the can opener like makes it so you can get the food out the tin and so forth. Right? Well, what about the dishwasher? Well, you're making a mess as you're doing this, and so you want to have you know where you wash these things nearby, because, you see, with food, you know,
• things could go bad, so you don't like constantly eat off the same plate without washing it in between. That would be kind of disgusting, but you know probably not all that healthy as well. And so all of these quote food processing devices are kept
• close together.
• Alright! Well, what is a brain? A brain is a information processing device. And you have all these information processing mechanisms. Why don't you keep them all together in the same room? What is that room? That room is the skull right. And so, because
• not only that, but you just totally minimize. You don't need a little man. Some people think there's a almost like there's a little man in there, and he's pressing all these sleep if you don't need a little man, so you don't need like room for him to walk. You smoosh it all together
• right?
• And that thing we call the brain, and that's the cheating that you wanted to do. You wanted to weld, you know your your fridge to your stove and call it one thing right? Well, that's what happens in the brain. You smush all these information processing devices, these different appliances together, and when you call it the one, this one thing, the brain. But actually, if you look at the brain
• oh, well, there's the occipital lobe, there's the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe, the frontal lobe. so are they all doing the same thing. No, we can study this. The occipital lo, just processes visual information. That's all it does
• right. And
• just a frontal lobe process, visual information. No, it does stuff like social information, it does. You know, higher level thought, and so forth. The temporal lobe seems to process
• the
• mit ctl, and what does the temporal lobe? I don't know. I'm not so good at this stuff, but you know they're different. Parts of the brain. Do different things right? So it's like
• you took something like a stove and a fridge, and you brought them together, and and they might communicate with one another in certain ways. Passing information from one to the other, just like in your kitchen. A person passes food from the fridge to the stove sort of thing right? And then, you know, passes plates from the table to the dishwasher, or the sink, or whatever right? And so we come back, you know, to Chomsky and Skinner
• Chomsky's saying, you know. in the
• information processing kitchen in your head there's a whole bunch of specialized devices, and they each do different things, and one of them specialize for language.
• It's the language acquisition device.
• But there will be other things in there, too. But you know I'm a linguist. I'm interested in language. I'm gonna tell you how language works. You need a special mechanism for processing language.
• Right?
• Skinner, on the other hand, says, no, that that thing that you call the brain that's the appliance. It does everything
• right. And it's like you're cheating, you know you you have taken, you know, a stove, and you welded it to a fridge, and you called it an appliance. It's like
• you're not fooling me right? And so, yeah, when you look at it, you look at the human brain, and how it operates, and so forth. Different parts are doing different things. It's like they're different appliances. The reason why it's set up that way
• is that if you try to have the appliance operand conditioning which does everything. It doesn't work
• doesn't work. You need to.
• You need to have some built in specialized sort of knowledge for figuring these things out what is operating, conditioning, operand conditioning, this trial and error learning? I do something. Does it work?
• Okay? Then I repeat it. But the thing is.
• there are just too many possibilities to consider right. And so
• I guess in Pr like theoretically, you could make this work, but it would maybe take forever to figure this sort of stuff out right? So
• there's this famous sort of thought experiment by this.
• This philosopher quine what is it? I forget, says
• initials. He's got some low frequency first names. But
• let me put that on here.
• So Kwan, he was a American philosopher middle of the twentieth century. So last century
• and
• he has this Gaba, Guy thought experiment
• alright. So you're travelling in this foreign land. and you don't know the language or anything. But then this rabbit runs by. and one of the natives points to it and goes. Gav a guy?
• What does Gavaggai mean?
• Hmm! Now, how do you know that
• everybody sort of goes? Yeah, Rabbit, how do you know that?
• No. it could mean undetached rabbit parts? How do you know it means rabbit, not undetached rabbit parts.
• why would it not? You have no prior beliefs. You have no prior ideas of anything.
• Maybe maybe it's Tuesday when this happened. Maybe what it Gaba Guy means is rabbit on Tuesday.
• but on Wednesdays they're thwirp.
• So on Tuesday. Gav. A guy, Wednesday. Throw
• right
• now you go, but you know that makes no sense.
• What's making the sense for you?
• What? Where, where, in reality is the thing that goes? This makes sense. This doesn't make sense. What is doing that? What's doing that work of this one makes sense, this one doesn't make sense.
• Did a voice speak to you and go
• look, this one makes sense that one doesn't. What's speaking to you? What's telling you? This makes sense that one doesn't
• just
• well, I would go. It's in my head my head is telling me this one makes sense. It's not like somebody else somewhere, you know. It's not like goes on. Oh, sense sense, and this one not sent. No, your head's doing that right
• now.
• Did you take lessons on that
• like? What grade were you when the teacher said, look when somebody points to something, it means the object, not undetached parts of that object.
• When what grade did you have that lesson?
• You don't have that lesson. Why not? It's built in. It's hard wired into you. That's part of the language acquisition device.
• Right? So you go. Well, that just makes sense.
• The reason it makes sense is your brain is set up so that that's what you consider, and not the other thing
• right. And and because it's all sort of unconscious.
• You don't even think that there's a problem to be solved. Your brain has already solved most of the problem for you.
• but if you had nothing in your head. To begin with, you had no language acquisition, device. The rabbit runs along
• and you'd be going. Well, wait a minute. Is does that mean the whole thing? Does it mean undetached rabbit parts? Does that mean rabbit on Tuesday, but not on Wednesday. Does that mean? You know there's a wide ringing doesn't mean essence of rabbit rabbit hood. Sort of thing
• right? No, you could try to figure those things out, and you could come back Wednesday. Show the guy a rabbit, and you know, show it to him and go. You know.
• Gav a guy, and if he goes thurp well, then, you're like, oh, okay, so maybe. But you know, there's there's an infinite number of those possibilities. Right?
• Maybe I can give you an argument for why, there's an infinite number of possibilities, and you can never rule it out right.
• which is maybe what this means is one rabbit.
• or, you know, 979,437 rabbits. Right? So, Gava Guy doesn't mean just like
• this rabbit. It means either one rabbit or this many rabbits.
• And then, once you
• that you know, rule that one out. Well, then, you need to consider.
• you know, 9 right? And there's an infinite number of numbers there.
• It. You will never
• like narrow down exactly what it means right? And because maybe you you you know, you cut the rabbit up and you go gav a guy, and it's like, Oh, okay.
• he doesn't say now that you know it's a well, no, even even then, you know. sort of whole rabbits and undetached rabbit parts are going to be difficult to separate those out
• right? But if you, if you like, narrow down one, it could be, you know, undetect. One example of undetached rabbit parts are 979,438 examples of undetached. You'll you'll never! You'll never.
• you know, figure out what it means.
• unless your head already constrained you to
• this is a possibility. Not that right? And so this is, you know, part of the argument for why Chomsky thought there has to be a specialized learning mechanism for language. But the thing is.
• language isn't unique. In this way.
• Social interactions are the same people are interacting in a particular sort of way. And and you know, I
• oh, was it this class? I'm losing track? Whatever. There. Well, okay, take take. You know, the difference between picking your nose and a husband, you know. Beating up and raping his wife.
• People treat those as different. They're not the same
• right? They're both bad.
• but they're not. They're they're sort of somehow different, right? And you treat them differently. Right? So you know, if
• I was up here picking my nose, eating it, and that you wouldn't sort of like intervene and say, No, no, don't do that physically. Intervene and stop me from doing that. But if you saw a guy here beating up his wife black and blue, and then attempt to rape her.
• maybe you wouldn't. But some people would go
• stop that. And then, if he doesn't, they would pull him away from her sort of thing, right?
• So so different social interactions. And and you're a child, and you're trying to figure out, is it? Is it like the nose picking? Or is it like the raping? What is it right? And
• Now you might go, that the possibilities are like much narrower there than they are like Gabagy or whatever. But still it's you know the logic is the same right? Oh, well, you know, this is an example of nose picking on Tuesday, but not nose picking on Wednesday.
• Right?
• Same sort of issue. You can. You can spin it the same way, unless you had some ideas. To begin with, what the range of possibilities were that you would be thinking about it forever trying to figure out. Is it this sort of thing or that sort of thing?
• So in a really weird sort of paradoxical way, it's sort of like.
• you know more things to begin with, and as an infant than you do as an adult. So again, the language is a good example, and the reason why language is a good example is that
• the people who study language have sort of
• this projection idea, this idea that these ideas are already sort of not not the full idea, but the abstract ideas are already, in a sense, in your head, and then you use those to project out onto the world.
• linguist sort of got there first, and so they made a lot of progress in studying language and so forth, right?
• But the but the the example I wanted to use is like the phonology, the sounds in language right? And
• there's this like critical little period for picking those up.
• So, for example, in in English there is the standard sort of phonology of things that you can say.
• But other languages have other things and so like in a lot of South Asian languages. They have these sounds that are written like when you write them in land scripts like GHKH BH
• and they're really difficult for English speakers to say we have. We have th and ph
• right? But they have these other things that are just sort of difficult to say.
• If you're a native English speaker, and you weren't exposed as a child to that. But if you took a child whose parents are native English speakers, and you raise them in India, where they use those sounds. Child would have no problems.
• and I think I think I can't recall. If this was.
• I don't think I said it in this class, but II might have in the the little bit that I recorded and posted online
• for some of the stuff that I missed, but like
• before coming here, I was working in Australia, in Australia, they call papaya pop off right and
• and I already sort of imitated a bit. But they don't say, papa. They say, Paul, Paul, something like that, and my kids. They were raised there first.
• and so they would say, Paul, Paul, like an Australian would. And for me it's just like
• I don't know. It's it's weird
• saying things in that way. Right? And what are all these little things like? Oh, and like Paul, Paul versus papa, that's an accent
• right. Where do accents come from? Based on your early experience of what you're exposed to? You? Sort of your mind gets sort of entrained on certain sounds
• and not others. But the thing is, when you are very young they're all a possibility for you.
• As you get older they begin. You start to lose that ability.
• So in a weird sort of way, the little kids have more language available to them than the adults do
• right. And things like, you know, like in English
• English, is what's called a head first language. So
• in in, in languages there are, there are phrases like a noun phrase, a verb phrase, adjectival phrase. The easiest one to understand is a adject, not agric, adverbial phrase. So you know
• this is on the table.
• right? The most important part of that phrase on the table is the adverb
• on or sorry the preposition on. And it comes first
• in Japanese. You don't say on the table you say the table on
• and this is one big divide between. A lot of languages, are they head first like English? Are they head last, like Japanese.
• And you sort of look at this, and you go. Oh, there's all this variability, but all the child really is doing is like learning.
• They have open to them this open parameter. The way that people are talking here? Are they talking in a head first way or in a head last way.
• And then, as an English speaker, you go. Okay, we talk in a head last way, or sorry head first way.
• right? And then you get so used to that that
• you know. Your brain sort of shuts down the other possibility, and then you encounter Japanese. And oh. this is like
• I'll say, messing with my mind. I was gonna say something else, but is messing with my mind. I mean, you know, I gotta reverse everything in that, whereas if you had been exposed as a kid with one Japanese parent and one English speaking parent, it would come naturally you wouldn't. You wouldn't have lost that ability and
• part of the argument I'm going to make in this class is that moralities like like I said, there are these 3 different sorts of morality.
• and and Jonathan. Hate makes this argument, not in this and not in this paper, but else well, actually, he might make it in this. I can't recall if he makes it in this paper, too, that Liberals have sort of lost that sense of these other system, these other moral systems, they just focus on one
• and to the well. He does make it somewhat in in this paper, you know, he talks about this sort of the liberal progressive view, the liberal progressive narrative versus the community lost narrative. And
• so under the liberal, progressive narrative. What we're trying to do is we're trying to give everybody, you know freedom and autonomy, you you, you decide, and so forth, maximum possibility of choosing, whereas in the sort of community loss narrative there were other values. Amongst those are the sanctity thing.
• You know. The guy who masturbates into a chicken, cooks it and eat it.
• The Liberal goes well, that's his choice. But the community lost person goes.
• But that's ignoring sanctity that's ignoring your dignity and so forth. And that's a valuable sort of value as well. And because the Liberals don't sort of work that mental muscle. They lose the sense of that.
• whereas the the community lost people.
• they haven't lost the sense of that. And so they feel that the culture that they live in now is missing something.
• and and they sort of mourn for the loss of it, or whatever right but somewhere, I think in in in the Hate paper, he sort of says, there is this sort of counterintuitive way of thinking about morality, that actually, as you grow older, you don't learn more things. You sort of eliminate more possibilities that were there, to begin with.
• which is highly counterintuitive, because most people think in this. I started off with this internalization sort of view, that you know all the richness, the mental richness and ideas is out there in the world, and your job is to bring that into your head
• right? Whereas the other view is that no, all that stuff that's out there
• is is being projected from not just your head, but other people's heads. Other people are projecting things from their heads. And, you're trying to figure out
• what are the things that people are, how you know, what part of the brain are people projecting
• to make this happen.
• and you, what you're trying to do is you're trying to coordinate with other people. You're trying to. Okay. You're thinking of it this way. So I need to think of it this way as well. And and there's these different possibilities. So it's sort of like, you know. Again, you find yourself in a in a linguistic community, and everybody is speaking in a
• in a head last way, right? And you're going. Is that head first, or it's a head last right? Well, you don't go. Oh, well, it's head last. So I'm just going to speak in a head first way.
• No, you're trying to figure this out so that you can coordinate with them so that you can run the same version of that in your head as they're running in their head.
• But the possibilities were already in your head. Right?
• anyhow, so I don't know. I ran a little a bit, but
• part of you know, it was saying at the outset, is this is supposed to be like a tutorial, and I never asked, do people have any questions about anything, anything about the readings, about the recorded lecture that you want me to go over
• because if you have.
• you know, looked at the required lecture.
• You know the old, the the thing about, you know history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes hopefully. You'll find that these tutorials don't repeat the lectures, but they rhyme with them. That sort of like, oh, that sounds kind of familiar. It's sort of like, you know what he was talking about in the record lecture.
• right?
• what about online? Anybody have any questions about anything like what I've been going over now in the readings or hard lecture. Anybody look at the record lecture so far.
• Does this help? Is it sort of like, oh, yeah, it's the same sort of thing. But it's different. Right? Yeah, that's what it's gonna be like, same sort of thing, but different going over in different ways, and maybe expanding things, and so forth.
• Alright, if there's no questions, there's one other thing that
• what are we doing for time
• we end at 1130. That I thought I would try to explain, because it's also counter intuitive right? So I sort of start the lecture by saying that you know the sociologists don't really like
• morality.
• And part of the reason why they don't like morality is that they think it's constraining right. They they are in that sort of liberal, progressive sort of mindset. Where?
• what we wanna do is we wanna improve society? We wanna give people more freedom and so forth. But of course, if you, if you impose all these rules and we're not in control of those rules
• than because it's in people's heads. Well, that's constraining right? That's limiting people's freedom right?
• And then I try to make this seemingly counterintuitive argument that actually no rules are liberating rules are enabling right.
• and and I use the example of again. II go. I'll go back to language, but then I'll translate it to morality. so
• What's the past tense of mortal?
• That's the example I use in the lecture, right?
• So first off, anybody know what Mardal means? It's a verb in English.
• Anybody know what it means? You probably never heard of that word? Right? So, Marla.
• okay, tell me, how do I write model in the past tense?
• You really mystifying? You don't know how you write, Marl in the past tense. Marl. Okay, somebody said that curing, I think right. And I think what you said is marveled.
• and you're correct. How? How the hell do you know that
• you don't even know what the word means? How do you know what the past tense of it means.
• how is that possible?
• there's a rule. There's a rule that lets you, you know, turn this into that
• right? So what do you think is giving you more freedom to talk to people interact with people so forth?
• A world in which yours.
• you know this. But you never know this because you haven't encountered it are one where it's like, you know, if I follow a rule that get me past this ignorance right like I give you another example here. So
• no, just saying, I don't want to do that
• now. I don't mean these to be in any particular order but these. There's these 3 words.
• build sailor boat.
• and I utter these 3 words, built sailor boat!
• What am I trying to tell you?
• The sailor built about right
• now. How do you know that? Because I didn't say that? How do you know that?
• Well. you sort of have some background knowledge about these things, and boats don't build sailors, and so forth. Right must have been. The sailor built the boat
• right. But now, what about
• I don't wanna reveal things by putting them in an order. I wrote it out here so in alphabetical order. So wouldn't it be?
• Where is it? Where is it? Where is it summer?
• Here we go.
• so, Giraffe, I in keep my pocket right. What am I talent trying to tell you? There.
• do you find this more difficult than that
• sly? Yeah.
• Oh. I used this example before is that you knew it.
• So you can sort of figure these things out a little bit right. But the thing is this all the same, this is much more difficult than that.
• Why, who keeps a giraffe in the right pocket?
• So the thing is is that you know what's the frequency with which, maybe, you know, a sailor would build a boat as opposed to somebody keeping a giraffe in their right pocket
• right now
• if instead, I said, You know.
• sailor, so a sailor
• So a sailor built a boat, are you? Is this helping you out
• a lot compared to that? Probably not.
• But this I bet you, is helping out a lot compared to that. Now, what is the difference between this and this and this? And this
• solution is lawful. And first one?
• Well.
• maybe you're just not familiar with the technical terms. I think you're on to what I'm trying to get to.
• This is following the grammar, the rules of English. This one. Is not this one's following the Gram or the rules of English? This one's not
• right.
• Logic does the same thing. It's like, How do you order, you know, ideas such that they follow a, you know, sort of comprehensible pattern. Right? That's what grammar does. Grammar orders the rules so that they follow a comprehensible pattern. And so the thing is, is that
• the point I want to make is grammar? Are the rules of of the language, at least at one sort of level word, order, and so forth. Right? They are helping you out. They are not keeping you from understanding people. They are enabling you to understand people.
• Not only that.
• as I add more words and so forth, it gets more and more and more difficult to figure out what somebody meant without those rules
• right? Because suppose the sentence was
• on Tuesdays I keep a giraffe in my pocket, my right pocket, but on Wednesdays I keep 2 dice in my left pocket, and on Friday I keep. You know I don't have anything in my pockets, and then I just put those words randomly.
• are alphabetical order. You will never figure out what I intended to say. It's only by virtue of having those rules that you can know the exact meaning of what I meant to say.
• Right. Those rules help you to understand other people.
• So what do moral rules do they help you to understand the social situation. and without those moral rules you would be at a loss. You wouldn't know how to interact with people
• right? Just like here. You don't know how to communicate with somebody when you have this with like, not the rules. Right? That's the same thing
• in an argument, in in arguably with with moral rules that they're not constraining you to. You know you. You could only act this way and no other way. No, they're enabling. They let you engage in social interactions with other people because they know. Oh, you're doing this
• because you're following this rule.
• right? And I can understand what you're doing because there's this underlying rule to it, and and that, and and so then I know how to interact with you. I know what to expect from you. I know what you expect from me. And
• You know you might have stepped out of bound here. So I'm you know it. It's it's it's legitimate for me to correct you, to make you follow the rules again, and so forth, so that we can carry on the social interaction, and that whereas the standard sort of view again
• is that these rules are coming outside of your head, and they're just oppressing you. They're just no, you can't do that. You can't do that, and so forth, right? Whereas another way of thinking about it is in your head to begin with, and you want them in your head
• because they let you navigate your social world. They let you interact with other people in ways that you know, give you more choice, give you more freedom to interact with. People like
• people, you know, arguably have more social rules in their heads than cats and dogs do.
• and be precisely because they have more rules in their head. They're able to do more things socially than cats and dogs can do cats. And there's lots of things humans socially do, that cats and dogs don't do and that's arguably because we have more stuff in our head. Not that enables us to learn per se, although in a certain sense. That's what I'm arguing. But it labels you to learn precisely because those learning mechanisms embody. Social life specific rules, right? And what are those social life. Specific rules. Those are moral rules.
• right? The moral rules are what enable you to
• you know, build your social world, which is basically what what Jonathan Hait argues right that morality are the rules that make social interactions possible and keep it from getting sidetracked into like selfishness and things like that.
• Okay, so I'll leave it at that. And next week we're on to sort of the Piagetian tradition of moral development, and and so forth.
• and I forget what's coming up. I next week, or whatever, if it's the quiz or the writing assignment, or if that's the week after. But I'll have that
• check the outline. Okay, any questions online
• about anything?
• Okay? Well, I'm gonna end here. So see you next week.