Inside Our Human Minds – Robert K. Logan, Author and Educator – Language, Culture, Communication, and the Human Mind's Desire to Understand
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this informative podcast, Robert K. Logan, the noted author of The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind, and Culture, talks about human intelligence, language, and communication.
Logan holds a BS and Ph.D. from MIT. He completed two post-doctoral appointments as a Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and at the University of Toronto.
As a physics professor with an inquisitive mind, Logan has spent a lifetime studying the important elements of the human mind, and how we use our language, and intelligence. Logan talks about his idea of 'the sixth language,' which was the foundation for his book, The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age.
The professor and author explain that the six languages are comprised of the following: speech, writing, math, science, computing, and the internet. He talks about how each developed and emerged, as well as their relative impacts on society and culture.
Logan discusses a possible seventh language, which as he states could be 'social media,' 'artificial intelligence,' or maybe the smartphones we use daily that have irrevocably changed how we interact with each other as human beings. As Logan states, human intelligence is not merely the possession of information, but it's about our curiosity, our interest in knowing and understanding.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Future Tech Podcast with Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:09.0 | Future Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, |
| 0:11.8 | Stem Cells, 3D printing, gene editing, |
| 0:14.6 | Bitcoin, blockchain, the microbiome, quantum computing, virtual reality, and exploring space |
| 0:21.0 | are much closer than you might think. |
| 0:23.0 | In fact, many early versions of these technologies are in play right now, |
| 0:27.0 | and the companies that are using these technologies |
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| 0:58.0 | Thank you. Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Future Tech and Future Tech |
| 1:08.2 | Health Podcast. I have Robert K Logan. He's a professoritus, the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. |
| 1:15.6 | He's got quite an extensive background and we're going to be talking about a recent work, the extended mind, the emergence of language, human mind, and culture, and also what is. the coming. How you doing? Doing fine. Yes, you would. |
| 1:33.0 | Tell me a little bit about your background and you know where your research and work and teaching |
| 1:38.3 | and everything is taking you. |
| 1:39.3 | Okay, I got my undergraduate and PhD at MIT, Bachelor in 61, PhD in 65. |
| 1:48.0 | It's been two years, University of Illinois, post hoc, came to Toronto in 67, been there ever since. |
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