Buddhism Meets Ai: Chomsky’s Take on the Conscious Mind

Noam Chomsky is a philosopher and linguist who pioneered the concept of Universal Grammar. Sponsors:
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LINKS MENTIONED:
- Paper "refuting" Chomsky by Piantadosi: https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/007180
- Sabine Hossenfelder video on ChatGPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP5zGh2fui0
- Every Noam Chomsky on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ7ikzmc6zlORiRfcaQe8ZdxKxF-e2BCY
- Terrence Deacon on TOE (Symbol Grounding Problem): https://youtu.be/PqZp7MlRC5g

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:50 Artificially intelligence "world government"
00:06:23 Introspection for self-knowledge (limits and power)
00:09:02 Buddhism and Taoism (for language) + suffering
00:09:54 Will humans survive?
00:10:44 What progress has been made in the study of language rules
00:13:02 Recursive "merge"
00:26:08 Dolphin and sperm whale languages (complexity measure?)
00:29:32 Philosophy of science
00:32:54 Symbol grounding problem and grounding moral philosophy
00:41:20 "Science is like a drunk at a lamppost"
00:42:36 Mind-body problem is misconceived
00:51:21 Sabine Hossenfelder on "ChatGPT Understands Language"
00:55:00 Modern language models refute Chomsky's approach to language
00:58:56 Bare phrase structure theory (inclusiveness condition)
01:01:09 Intentionality and Searle's Chinese Room Experiment
01:05:45 Generative grammar and metaphysics (Langan's CTMU)
01:07:52 Consciousness creating reality?
01:11:59 Does Universal Grammar hold up to "Bayesian modeling"?
01:13:28 AGI Scaring Chomsky
01:14:56 Linguistic successors of Chomsky
01:16:11 Human language capacity vs. arithmetical capacity (is it related?)
01:20:23 "You can't know anything for certain" and Nihilism