A Comment on Noam Chomsky

[BaalChatzaf]

I ran across this remark damning Chomsky. I thought it was rather on the mark.

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That Mr. [Noam] Chomsky wears the mantle of respect, that he occupies the position of "intellectual," and that he continues to confuse and debauch the young with his filth is a shame. To abide this shame is a part of the price of living in a free society.

David Mamet, The Wicked Son, Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews [Nextbook, Shocken, New York, 2006, p.143].

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This was extracted from the site

http://www.friesian.com/rand.htm

Go 2/3 down the page to the topic : The Leftover Left

This article does a number and a half on Chomsky and his ilk (have you ever noticed that the Good Guys have allies and the Bad Guys have ilk?).

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited July 22, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[Alfonso Jones]

It is of course expected to produce Rand's mention of Noam Chomsky, from The Ayn Rand Letter, Volume 1, #10, 14 February 1972:

"His [skinner's] speculations are devoid of scientific content and do not even hint at general outlines of a possible science of human behavior." In regard to Skinner's claims: "Claims...must be evaluated according to the evidence presented for them. In the present instance, this is a simple task, since no evidence is presented...In fact, the question of evidence is beside the point, since the claims dissolve into triviality or incoherence under analysis."

The reviewer employs one of the best methods of dealing with a false theory: he takes it literally. "If Skinner's thesis is false, then there is no point in his having written the book or our reading it. But if his thesis is true, then there is also no point in his having written the book or our reading it. For the only point could be to modify behavior, and behavior, according to the thesis, is entirely controlled by arrangement of reinforcers. Therefore reading the book can modify behavior only if it is a reinforcer, that is, if reading the book will increase the probability of the behavior that led to reading the book (assuming an appropriate state of deprivation). At this point, we seem to be reduced to gibberish."

There are many other notable passages in that review. But its author is Noam Chomsky who, philosophically, is a Cartesian linguist advocating a theory to the effect that man's mental processes are determined by innate ideas—and who, politically, belongs to the New Left.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Alfonso Jones]

And, from the Journals of Ayn Rand:

May 11, 1961

[AR made the following notes while attending a conference on "Methods in Philosophy and the Sciences" at The New School in New York City.]

[speaker: Noam Chomsky, "Some Observations on Linguistic Structure."] Noam Chomsky, (an expert social-metaphysical-elite witch doctor): "Studies" should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Simple trees [i.e., diagrams used in modern symbolic logic]: is the manner of presentation always in mid-stream, assuming previous knowledge?

Pure Rube Goldberg. [Goldberg was an American cartoonist who drew absurdly complex mechanical devices.]

How many trees would I need to build in order to understand Atlas Shrugged—and in how many volumes? Is Chomsky trying to systematize all conceptual relationships in language?

Edited July 22, 2008 by Bill P

[Chris Grieb]

I remembered Ayn Rand's reference in her review of B F Skinner but had forgotten the reference to Chomsky in the Journal's. Thanks for the reminder.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Chris Grieb

[Robert Campbell]

Bill P,

In my article "Ayn Rand and the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology"

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/randcogrev.html

I commented on both her 1961 journal entry and the passage in her 1972 review of Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner.

(David Harriman, who edited Ms. Rand's journals, did not know the difference between a Chomsky-style grammatical tree structure and a formula in modern symbolic logic. It's not the worst editorial move he made, but it's also not a confidence-builder.)

Noam Chomsky is a major figure in linguistics and Cognitive Science. Some of his influence has been good, IMHO, and some has been bad, but there's no questioning his importance.

The guy's politics are another matter. They have been hard, hard Left, going back as long as he has been publishing on the subject (Noam Chomsky has had a long and vigorous career, and will turn 80 some time this year).

Some of his books and speeches contain what Dr. Chomsky, an extremely smart man, has to know are outright lies. For instance, in a speech that some of his acolytes filmed and circulated on DVD, he declared that Cuba, under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro, has been the target of more terrorist attacks than any other country on the planet during that span of time.

Robert Campbell

[Chris Grieb]

There is a book called "The Anti-Chomsky Reader" by Peter Collier and David Horowitz which I have a copy. It has nine chapters on Chomsky's views on the world, the Jews, the war on terror and linguistics. It is a good antidote for the over praise of Chomsky.

[BaalChatzaf]

And, from the Journals of Ayn Rand:

May 11, 1961

Simple trees [i.e., diagrams used in modern symbolic logic]: is the manner of presentation always in mid-stream, assuming previous knowledge?

Pure Rube Goldberg. [Goldberg was an American cartoonist who drew absurdly complex mechanical devices.]

How many trees would I need to build in order to understand Atlas Shrugged—and in how many volumes? Is Chomsky trying to systematize all conceptual relationships in language?

Tree structures have their uses:

1. Illustrating derivations in formal logic.

2. Illustrating grammatical derivations in finitary string production systems, related to the above.

3. State transition diagrams in finite state machines.

4. Showing conditional probabilities in systems that evolve by stages.

So there is nothing wrong with tree structures per se.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

And, from the Journals of Ayn Rand:

May 11, 1961

Simple trees [i.e., diagrams used in modern symbolic logic]: is the manner of presentation always in mid-stream, assuming previous knowledge?

Pure Rube Goldberg. [Goldberg was an American cartoonist who drew absurdly complex mechanical devices.]

How many trees would I need to build in order to understand Atlas Shrugged—and in how many volumes? Is Chomsky trying to systematize all conceptual relationships in language?

Tree structures have their uses:

1. Illustrating derivations in formal logic.

2. Illustrating grammatical derivations in finitary string production systems, related to the above.

3. State transition diagrams in finite state machines.

4. Showing conditional probabilities in systems that evolve by stages.

It turns out that Chomsky transformation grammars correspond to general Turing machines, which are the most general of the finite state automata.

So there is nothing wrong with tree structures per se.

Ba'al Chatzaf