Someone who explored this explicitly was the philosopher Eugene Gendlin, who also developed a practice called Focusing as a way of attending to our wordless experience. Words, concepts, feelings can all then be brought forth out a 'felt sense' of things in the body.
It's interesting what he said about Freud. I think in some ways you can even say the same thing about Jungian theory. The whole goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious in order to integrate repressed trauma and desires. But I think Chomsky is right; Freud does not seem to endorse the idea that the unconscious itself cannot be made conscious. Jung comes closer to the idea that the unconscious cannot be directly experienced by consciousness with his theory of the archetypes. The archetypes being fundamental characteristics of reality, similar to Plato's Forms.
I don't know if Freud formulated it this way, but in contemporary psychoanalysis, the subconscious mind is distinguished from the unconscious mind. The subconscious is said to be semi-accessible, whereas the unconscious is completely inaccessible. (I personally reject psychoanalytic theory.)
I know that people don't take Alan Watts seriously especially when he talks about the some eastern "religions" (leave out the quotation marks if you want) like taoism and zen buddhism but he very clearly says that there consciousness is not the only intelligence there is. I haven't studied these religions (which Watts likens more to philosophy than mysticism) to be able to verify, but I think this is very close to what Chomsky espouses or theorises here.
They made the whole effort to get a signer, but the film guy did not make an effort to get him fully on screen. Way to go guys.. ''A'' for effort though
I'm autistic, I'm fairly certain visual communication comes easier to us and verbal language is a second language, I know this is at least true for me. Thinking via emotions is a better way to describe it though. When I think simple thoughts I can in verbal language but complex thoughts it is purely either emotional, visual, or a blend of the two. Alot a mammals speak this way, I find communication with nonhuman animals easier than with humans, also babies are eaiser to understand too. Learning how to read and write in a foreign language comes before speaking it. Not sure if you took a second language but when you do you find it almost universally true while you are learning the language (both writing and speaking) you may know a couple words and might be able to ask a question but you really pick up reading first, then with practice reading speaking becomes easier, as speaking becomes easier so does writing. Verbal language is not just like a second language but is a second language I am still learning. I am able to read and write more than I can speak, I can speak some, but my native language is one that is not based primarily in verbal language and secondarily with visual language, my native language is one that is primarily feeling and secondarily visual; that is how I understand communication and thus how I think and communicate. I completely get how confusing or strange that sounds but that goes both ways, learning the allistic verbal language is strange, confusing, weird, really difficult, and unnatural. My fullest understanding of verbal language up till a few years ago is someone makes sound, makes sounds back, based on those sounds you get different responses so I would try make the sound I felt someone wanted to hear. It wasn't till a good friend of mine showed and demonstrated these sounds have more meaning to them, that was when I was 18. I went to public school, was a great student, but went all of school verbalizing exactly like that. I knew basic things like this sound means milk and so on, but verbal language is still really foreign to me and I also have had a low reading level. My understanding of verbal language is so minimal, I was allowed to be on ESL even though I raised in a home spoke english. This is the best way I have decribed my "native" language and how I understand communication naturally using what words english has available: Imagine a written language. Instead of writing this language with characters to form a word such in latin this language uses symbols to mean words that can be modified based a number of other symbols. Instead of writing this language this way, this is how you speak it. more specifically the words can be modified based on prefixes, suffixes, words that follow and come before a word, and each modifier can also be modified with inflextion. How you speak this language is using body language (visual) and occasionally sound (auditory) to denote each word and every modifier. The way you listen to this language is like reading (which is a visual task though with braille can be tactile) and you process the language by feeling
You're very wrong about needing to learn to read and write a foreign language before being able to speak it. Similarly, it's wrong to say that verbal language is secondary. Written language is in fact a creation of culture; while verbal language is a creation of evolution. People were able to learn other people's language before written words even existed.
While it might be true that these days, the way we’re taught foreign languages is mainly through reading and writing, you can’t say that spoken language is “secondary” to them. Not at all. You can still find tribes today with no written language, but never find any of them mute. Speech (or sign) language is innate in us.
It must be extremely frustrating having such an active and introspective mind and not being able to express it to people who either can’t or don’t want to understand. You say you were at a low reading level, but what you’ve written here shows exact precision and calculated effort in constructing a narrative. From this comment, I can tell that you are a perfect example of what Chomsky is trying to explain about language and the human mind; each of us are programmed biologically to process thoughtforms and complex ideas into organized sequences of information. You do this in a way that is significantly different than most humans, in a way it’s more primal and closer to your sensory nervous system. Most people, as you note, use language as a tool to communicate abstractions that aren’t related to the immediate states or objects being discussed; you have a “feeling” for milk, which you learned to identify as what the other person wanted to hear when the topic of milk was broached. This is functionally no different than what other people do, but is radically different experientially. You might be forgiven for thinking this is a major setback or shows a lack of understanding, but I think this indicates that you understand reality more clearly than others. My idea of “milk” is a cold, unfeeling archetypal form which exists as a tool to be called upon when constructing a relational statement or observation. I don’t “feel” milk, nor do I have any innate emotional attachment to the idea at all. It’s just an empty shell to parade around as an idea, a vessel for purpose that can take as many forms as is necessary to communicate a greater point. People like me are very easily caught up in misinformation and lies, because we have no emotional connection to the words being used, only the implied message. If someone uses a word to subliminally evoke a certain emotion or association, it is extremely hard for me to notice or control my reaction, because the entire process goes on subliminally. Being able to “feel” words and use them in a way that calls on primary sensory awareness makes you automatically immune to doublespeak or manipulation tactics. Big words and complex ideas can turn well meaning people into raving zealots who willingly surrender their sensory awareness to ideological thoughtforms and belief systems. I have such a deeply embedded disconnect of communication and feeling, it’s almost impossible for me to understand something that you experience daily. Kudos to you for being who you are and helping people like me to understand our weaknesses and shortcomings, and how we can be better people.
Funny that I was wondering if he could apply the discussion to the guy doing translation with sign language and right then and there, Chomsky references the guy.
I often have stims or ticks when confronted with a conflicting emotion. It's not uncommon to find myself grunting at a train of thought where, I assume, it's my subconscious stopping said train of thought from developing in to a greater issue by being overwhelmed. These grunts or noises can range from a simple low-pitched grunt as if in distaste or a loud tourettes-like squeaks. In company, it's not so noticeable as my focus is purely in the subject, not what's going on inside my head. Only when I recluse and retreat in to myself do I find this inner critic free to play.
Love how Chomsky just casually drops the whole "some things aren't access me to consciousness" like that's not a massive fuckin deal. "I dunno, there shit you do that you can't know why you do it or where the instruction comes from, what do you want?"
all .the respect to the founder of the linguistic moderne and grammar generative the human kind sometimes all the human they are sometimes thoughts without language's the thought tourne in circle in mind
I noticed a few times that it is rather easy to force unconsciousness manifest itself, at least for me and in my case, for a short periods of time. Such a period lasts a second at most. Here is the how I can sometimes provoke it: happens most of the time when I am doing a few things at the same time, thus overloading my conscious thought process, and if I suddenly shift my thought process trying to recall an embarrassing situation(this is the hard part, actually) I have been through recently I sometimes involuntarily mumble or produce a grunting noise. Which is funny. Because the mind/consciousness scrambles to stop this uncontrolled blurt of a noise/word and I catch myself thinking about myself as if I was talking in third person about myself to someone else, saying: "somebody, shut him up!". I always chuckle afterwards, because the whole thing is awkward and uncontrollable, but still funny, because it feels like you have been caught with your pants down, with the difference that it is you who caught yourself and in fact nobody notices you were out of control of the situation, a kind of a situation where you amused yourself unexpectedly. The other one is purely incidental trick I discovered water skiing or when I flipped watwrscooter. At the moment I hit the water upside down submerging my body into water at head first, I figured that my mind got confused because the vestibular sensing was telling that something is wrong and centrifugal force and inertia was doing a number on my sensation of orientation in space(hitting water upside down from a good speed) and water blurring the vision and noises of bubbles inside my ears and with a sensation of water going through the nostrils has caught me completely unexpectedly and got me perplexed. Everything was in such a slow mo I could not believe it, so my perception of time was off by at least a magnitude. I was again out of any ideas except that I recall the raw sensations, like sudden jerk, taste of water through my nose, the suspense and it was not my rational usual self who was thinking all this stuff through and experiencing the event. I recall vividly, as if the usual me, who I am, has been temporarily knocked out and alter me took over. This is something I never experienced before. This guy is me yet, I do not know him. Surely, it was unconciousness. I wonder if anybody had experienced similar things and I also wonder if shrooms or acid/psychedelics induced trips feel anywhere similar. I have never tried those.
You are correct about psychadelics. Your brain released some stuff so you felt that way, in the same way psychadelics release the same stuff in your brain so you feel and think and preserve everything different(But are still feeling 100% "sober"/clear headed, like you are aware of that you are in the situation). If any of that made sense? It is hard to explain to people with no experience, since human communication is very poor compared to what's inside our head.
The same thing happened to me in a car accident. It all happened so fast in reality but when I experienced it, everything was moving slow almost as if I was watching myself during the crash and actually IN the crash at the same time.
aleph null Thank you for the anecdotes. I know psychedelics can induce the states you describe. Such awareness can be amusing, or noisy/overpowering, or a sort of near death disassociation that grants you access as an observer to your body’s sensations. Like you overloading your conscious mind. Unfiltered and unrefined experience of moments can break open your sense of a discreet self.
The first example - definitely yes. And in my case it's always triggered by that feeling of the "other" being embarrassed and the collision of the two "voices".
This is such a tricky one for me, I haven't been able to fully grasp it yet and I've been trying for years. It feels related to the nature of consciousness debate somehow. Obviously, language is a tool and it stands to reason that its selection is limited and you can't fully express everything due to the nuance and complexity of perceived reality. But to say that I can think in a conscious, structured sense, without language, is not something I can accept. Obviously my brain processes things all the time without my aware involvement, like a fly, but purposely think? I think not. What remains if you take away my words though, is entirely unclear. The reason this occupies me is because I tend to tell people that postmodernism applied to language undermines our ability to think. The comeback is usually: I don't need language to think.
Yes, internatl thought is often fragmentary and extra-linguistic: Read James Joyce's 'Ulysses' to see how he produces the realities of internal thinking.
Language Do Not Exist. Feeling has No Language. Heart has Beating. Eyes have Sight. Eyes Speak of Your Heart. Love has No Words, Explaination, Realisation. The World is Myth.
Inaccessible intuitively or objectively? Chomsky has pointed out many times that many things we've learned about in life ultimately require huge paradigm shifts and acceptance of things that are highly rational, but deeply unintuitive, like gravitation or 'force at a distance' for example. It took hundreds of years for people to accept this and thousands and thousands for people to figure it out. But that doesn't make it untrue, just difficult to grasp. Conciousness, decision making and free-will might be in that realm too. But it might even be in the realm of the purely unknowable.
Nathan Dehnel because the unconsciousness is occurring as neurological activity then at least it's occurrence may be recorded or observed (tho probably not understood) through brain imaging
at 4:10 he is talking about the work of Ben Libet. Caused a big stir back in the 1970's when he first did the experiments and,,,,,the arguments continue today: March, 2022.
When I meditate seeking the empty mind...in those few seconds of mindlessness, sometimes you become very aware of just how much is going on in that mindlessness....ovvero, in that nothingness, in that mindlessness, in that non consciousness there is a universe of experience which sometimes manifests itself in awesome INSIGHTS
Learning to think outside the parameters of linguistic rulesets is the greatest tool any conscious being can have. Contrary to chomskean thought, it does not take a tremendous amount of effort. Yogis have been teaching mindfulness for thousands of years. Fifteen minutes a day twice a day, it will unlock your mind to all the subconscious phenomena for you to explore. Your Siddhis, the ethereal vehicles, you’ll find out quickly (sub)conscious is a misnomer. It’s really more like a Larger Consciousness system VR experience where we learn lessons about growth and love and maturity and shit. The multiverse is out there awaiting your exploration, first you must learn to silence your mind. Again, Chomsky wring, it only takes a few weeks of practice.
mindfulness is being present in union with a thought.. This is more of becoming one with the witness of the thought rather than mindfull of it. plus mindfullness has become such a fortune cookie philosophy/idea in today's self help "change" culture. It has lost its context to the act of turning off the mind
I talk to myself all the time. Its the only way I am guaranteed an intellectual conversation. When Chomsky said do signers sign to themselves did the sign guy, sign w@nker.
The last 30 seconds....surely it is an argument against libertarian free will. That most of what the mind is doing is subconscious, and it’s not a voluntary act that’s making decisions. It depends on the concepts defined “free will” “self” etc.
Dawkins tried to use that study as evidence against free will in a debate with a British Theologian. Held some high former position at the Anglican Church.
it impossible to thoughting without language because the language it just translated the thought maybe somethinges and somethinges no because somethinges we can't not translated our thinking with language.
Could they be represented with multiple words? Like how you can say “gaining pleasure from destruction.” I mean there’s infinite thought, but there’s also infinite arbitrary strings of words. I guess there’s the issue that language is originally built around the thoughts and feelings of a child, because those are the ones who take to language the best.
Probably Benjamin Libet. The results of his experiments (and others conducted since) bring into question the nature of free will. Chomsky seems to think this doesn't change anything but I (and many others) think it may have profound consequences.
@@chriswilliams1096 This just reduces down to a disagreement over the definition of consciousness. Free will occurs as a consequence of processing in the brain, which can be indexed by neural signatures. The argument seems to be that it is the brain deciding, rather than the conscious mind. Yet the conscious mind is a consequence of the operation of the brain, including motor preparation for actions. Whether you understand the ways in which the conscious mind operates within such a dynamic system seems to be the index of whether these results seem profound or mundane.
@Studentofgosset Indeed. It all comes down to definitions in the end. All attempts to define 'brain', 'mind', 'conscious mind', 'subconscious mind' and 'free will' rely on conceptually separating parts which are, in fact, tightly and subtly integrated. According to Libet, most (if not all) decisions that I make are actually happening at a deeper level of consciousness than I had previously believed. The consequences, to me, of discovering this feel quite profound. On the other hand, in a more pragmatic sense, there is nothing I can do about this. Decisions get made (in some poorly understood fashion) and actions are taken. The outcome seems likely to be the same whether I understand the process or not. From this point of view the results could be viewed as mundane. The only conclusion I can come to is "free will is not all it's cracked up to be". I am still pondering the implications, which are at least interesting.
One of the deepest remarks I have heard in years of reading philosophy and science. Philosophers and scientists alike do not generally conceive unconscious thought as a reality. It is hard for them to do so, in part because of a deep-seated dualism that goes back well before Descartes, in part because their intellectual life is all about thought. If you are a hammer, all you think about are nails. It is not by chance that one of the most salient words in philosophy, logos, means both word and reason. This whole mess comes to the fore when neuroscientists try to understand, using for example functional imaging techniques, how we make decisions. These experiments show that regions of the brain involved in the decision become active milliseconds before a conscious decision is made. Often taken as evidence against free will, this is actually evidence that thought is largely prelogic (pre-conscious, pre-language). Art, which Benedetto Croce defined an 'alogical intuition', is all about this. PS I am embarrassed and slightly flattered to say that I wrote this comment before Chomsky finished, so he beat me to the punch on the decision thing... not surprisingly...
"Philosophers and scientists alike do not generally conceive unconscious thought as a reality. It is hard for them to do so, in part because of a deep-seated dualism that goes back well before Descartes" - Worthless and generalized opinion which you could hardly ever falsify. "It is not by chance that one of the most salient words in philosophy, logos, means both word and reason." - There are many different definitions of the word 'logos', you just picked one that suits you. "Often taken as evidence against free will, this is actually evidence that thought is largely prelogic (pre-conscious, pre-language)" - This is nothing but your opinion, don't misconstrue this as fact. "in years of reading philosophy and science" - Maybe you should go back to some introductory reading on generalized statements, validity of logical argumentation and the difference between rationalism and empirism.
to answors to this question ❓️ that somethinges we just thoughting with not translated to language's with not spike or spoke or say I called the froget of memory the minds froget
Not really. Chomsky said that the neuroscience experiments showing people aren't aware of their own decisions when they're made doesn't prove the non-existence of free will. Sam Harris made the same point, so both Chomsky an Harris agree on this point. Harris's argument against free will doesn't rely on brain scans. His argument is that even if we know every detail about the decision making process, it's still a mystery as to how the decision is made. We still aren't the authors of our thoughts.
+Green Brain Seaside Harris, unless I'm mistaken, used these psych experiments to speciously argue that because humans appear to have not known which decision they were going to make, until a brain scan had already detected which decision they were going to make, then they aren't free agents. Chomsky, very brieflly, points out that there is a huge disconnect between the somewhat startling results of that experiment, and the conclusion that we aren't free or the decision-makers.
+Rafat Islam That's not what I recall Harris saying about that experiment. Are you willing to refute me? I agree that Harris argued upon much more than that experiment. It was a focal point though. See this is where I still think Chomsky's point holds water and suggests the non-sequitur of Harris' argument. If as you say, Harris' argument is that because "it's still a mystery as to how the decision is made" and therefore "we still aren't the authors of our thoughts" then I think his argument is totally insufficient. It may be totally valid that we don't know what chain of events leads to our decisions, but that doesn't mean we didn't make them, or are, as you say, the authors of our thoughts. That experiment merely means, (if accurately done) that in a very particular decision making scenario, our consciousness of the decision lags the decision itself. That really doesn't say anything about who/what caused the decision or about whether alternatives were possible or a plethora of other questions we might want to know. One of the many problems with Harris' talk, and our subsequent conversations, is that free will was never even defined. That was sort of pathetic for a famous intellectual of supposed repute. How do you have a multi-hour argument about free-will and never limn/adumbrate your topic for the audience? A side note: Graziano's Attention Schema Theory(AST) seems almost the conclusion naturally consequent of this psych experiment. Some questions to answer in our discussion: Is free-will the ability to choose/make a decision that then happens? Then AST and the psych experiment and Chomsky all seem to agree that free-will is very much intact, because, our awareness of when a decision is made says nothing about if or what made that decision. If we are going to be 'incompatiblists', then again we've learned nothing because we know nothing about whether determinism is true or not. I like AST because it fits nicely into evolution and explains why and how consciousness developed. From an naturalistic worldview, accepting biology, evolution etc., it's almost a requirement that free-will exist. Why would nature go through all that effort to create a 'hardware' for analyzing, for making meaning and sense out of our external environment, if that 'data' then couldn't be fedback into us and interpreted and implemented for successful behaviors, ie. living, health, reproduction.
It's not true that people speak with themselves all the time, or most of the time. You can learn how to be silent and assimilate that ability so that you become silent and observant/focused most of the time. In time, it becomes your second nature and casual speaking with oneself feels ackward, if not crazy.
Yeah it is. Moral of the story: "the unconscious" is just the term used in our paradigm for things we cannot explain or affect or understand - the mystical. Since we as a society tend to try to rationalise things that are irrational, since we try to understand things scientifically that are impossible to understand scientifically, we use freud's term - freud was obsessed with finding a scientific metanarrative that could explain all human behaviour and with finding scientific methods with which to "uncover" the "hidden truth". Yet another example of humans not admitting that some things cannot be explained the way gravity or explosions can be.
on the topic of consciousness I often find that ramblings are happening in the back of my brain when I'm not thinking or behind other thoughts, more often then not completely incoherent maybe a mixture of the show I just watched and the things happening in my life, kind of like a narrator but not actually reflecting the things around me and as soon as I tune in it will stop, my thoughts are maybe it's the other half of my brain the half that can't control speech but I have no way to know, heres a video on the fact that you are really two people ua-cam.com/video/wfYbgdo8e-8/v-deo.html
35 To him who holds in his hands the Great Image (of the invisible Tao), the whole world repairs. Men resort to him, and receive no hurt, but (find) rest, peace, and the feeling of ease. Music and dainties will make the passing guest stop (for a time). But though the Tao as it comes from the mouth, seems insipid and has no flavour, though it seems not worth being looked at or listened to, the use of it is inexhaustible.
Instrumental music is the only universal language, encompassing everything words can and can't, and Chomsky doesn't like music. But, by golly, can he talk... 2:08, "that tells us something but not enough"...grr
Jung and who?? Talking about what cannot be know even in principle is losing time. We assume some axioms and then build on them, like "free will exist" so...
I would say 99% of thought isn't in language. And all those UA-cam videos with titles like, 'How to think in x language' or, 'how to stop thinking in your native language' from clueless people, selling themselves as experts on language learning, are absolute BS. They're usually from the same channels who tell their subscribers that "practicing speaking is how you get better at speaking." 🤦♂️
Poor Old Noam really should study AND PRACTISE an authentic meditation on the nature of mind before he bungs on about "what is known/not known" or what really is the relationship between ideas, inside voices, language and words spoken. Total nonsense from one who ONLY HAS an intellectual understanding ABOUT the mind ... rather than OF THE MIND. Sadly, the questioner and the audience are going to leave with yet another false set of impressions about this very important topic. Chomsky says "not much research has been done about this". Bullshit. Thousands of years of research have been done about it in the East.
I mean, Freud literally called it "unconscious" for a reason. I don't understand how such a brilliant person as Chomsky has such a horrible understanding of psychoanalysis, even though he says he read Freud.
I think you're completely misunderstanding the point. Freudian unconscious does not deal with truly unconscious things with no real input from the conscious, thinking mind. Freudian unconscious was encoded by the conscious with minor exceptions at certain phases of life; the unconscious that Professor Chomsky is referring to is the signaler, if that makes any sense. It's almost like the binary of our thoughts if you'd prefer it that way. Freud's theory of unconscious and accessing the unconscious mainly dealt with the surfacing of subconscious thoughts for the treatment of his patients (following the previous analogy, this would be closer to assembly or a high-level programming language), which is totally understandable when you realize that the man was a doctor treating patients - not a psychologist. He wasn't super concerned with the theoretics, per se, as he was primarily concerned with the treatment of his patients, and in these treatments, he developed his theories. The two types of unconscious here are entirely different. Freudian unconscious might include the one Professor Chomsky is talking about by virtue of just being an incredibly broad term, but Freud goes into zero detail on it; since he goes into such little detail, and the two different types are radically different from each other, Professor Chomsky believes that distinction is important.
No, it is you the one who doesn't understand Freud. I don't know if you've ever read him, but he never used the term "subconscious", and he even took the trouble to state why he was against the term. You are right in that Freud was a doctor treating patients, but he goes into quite a bit of detail about what the unconscious is and how does it work. It would not be an exageration to say that the theory of the unconscious makes up a very large portion of Freud's lenghty oeuvre. Freud's unconscious is not as broad a term as you make it out to be. He does develop different theories about it, and that may confuse some readers, but he always gave an accurate description on his currents thoughts on the matter. Even if the unconscious to Freud wasn't always that which is inaccessible to conscience, he arrives to that conclusion throughout his carreer, and that is one of the most important turning points of his theory (although he didn't ignore the fact before, just didn't stated as clearly). He literally introduced the "id" to account for this share of the unconscious mind. Psychoanalytic technique takes this into account, and transference - the instrument Freud used to treat his patients- is built around it. Chomsky just doesn't want to be associated with Freud, and that's understandable. But he only needed to clarify that he wasn't talking about the freudian unconscious. There's no need to spread information that's factually wrong, and that's very easy to verify, even with a shallow understanding of psychoanalysis.
Noam is such a treasure. My gratitude for him is where language fails for me.
props to the sign guy spelling schadenfreude without missing a beat
Tiago dos Reis Rodrigues hahaha!
Incredible!
That signer is a genius.
Someone who explored this explicitly was the philosopher Eugene Gendlin, who also developed a practice called Focusing as a way of attending to our wordless experience. Words, concepts, feelings can all then be brought forth out a 'felt sense' of things in the body.
ooo, thanks for that!
Man what an intellectual, insightful and incisive remarks without any verbose fancy dress
It's interesting what he said about Freud. I think in some ways you can even say the same thing about Jungian theory. The whole goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious in order to integrate repressed trauma and desires. But I think Chomsky is right; Freud does not seem to endorse the idea that the unconscious itself cannot be made conscious. Jung comes closer to the idea that the unconscious cannot be directly experienced by consciousness with his theory of the archetypes. The archetypes being fundamental characteristics of reality, similar to Plato's Forms.
I don't know if Freud formulated it this way, but in contemporary psychoanalysis, the subconscious mind is distinguished from the unconscious mind. The subconscious is said to be semi-accessible, whereas the unconscious is completely inaccessible.
(I personally reject psychoanalytic theory.)
I know that people don't take Alan Watts seriously especially when he talks about the some eastern "religions" (leave out the quotation marks if you want) like taoism and zen buddhism but he very clearly says that there consciousness is not the only intelligence there is. I haven't studied these religions (which Watts likens more to philosophy than mysticism) to be able to verify, but I think this is very close to what Chomsky espouses or theorises here.
They made the whole effort to get a signer, but the film guy did not make an effort to get him fully on screen. Way to go guys.. ''A'' for effort though
'Literature can be a means of expressing the inexpressible, the ineffable', is sth I understood from some of his talk.
"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent"
Wittgenstein
Fuck that was interesting, I think I might need to study linguistics or sign language...
omg yes me too
I'm autistic, I'm fairly certain visual communication comes easier to us and verbal language is a second language, I know this is at least true for me. Thinking via emotions is a better way to describe it though. When I think simple thoughts I can in verbal language but complex thoughts it is purely either emotional, visual, or a blend of the two. Alot a mammals speak this way, I find communication with nonhuman animals easier than with humans, also babies are eaiser to understand too.
Learning how to read and write in a foreign language comes before speaking it. Not sure if you took a second language but when you do you find it almost universally true while you are learning the language (both writing and speaking) you may know a couple words and might be able to ask a question but you really pick up reading first, then with practice reading speaking becomes easier, as speaking becomes easier so does writing. Verbal language is not just like a second language but is a second language I am still learning. I am able to read and write more than I can speak, I can speak some, but my native language is one that is not based primarily in verbal language and secondarily with visual language, my native language is one that is primarily feeling and secondarily visual; that is how I understand communication and thus how I think and communicate. I completely get how confusing or strange that sounds but that goes both ways, learning the allistic verbal language is strange, confusing, weird, really difficult, and unnatural. My fullest understanding of verbal language up till a few years ago is someone makes sound, makes sounds back, based on those sounds you get different responses so I would try make the sound I felt someone wanted to hear. It wasn't till a good friend of mine showed and demonstrated these sounds have more meaning to them, that was when I was 18. I went to public school, was a great student, but went all of school verbalizing exactly like that. I knew basic things like this sound means milk and so on, but verbal language is still really foreign to me and I also have had a low reading level. My understanding of verbal language is so minimal, I was allowed to be on ESL even though I raised in a home spoke english.
This is the best way I have decribed my "native" language and how I understand communication naturally using what words english has available: Imagine a written language. Instead of writing this language with characters to form a word such in latin this language uses symbols to mean words that can be modified based a number of other symbols. Instead of writing this language this way, this is how you speak it. more specifically the words can be modified based on prefixes, suffixes, words that follow and come before a word, and each modifier can also be modified with inflextion. How you speak this language is using body language (visual) and occasionally sound (auditory) to denote each word and every modifier. The way you listen to this language is like reading (which is a visual task though with braille can be tactile) and you process the language by feeling
Thanks for sharing ( :
You're very wrong about needing to learn to read and write a foreign language before being able to speak it. Similarly, it's wrong to say that verbal language is secondary.
Written language is in fact a creation of culture; while verbal language is a creation of evolution. People were able to learn other people's language before written words even existed.
While it might be true that these days, the way we’re taught foreign languages is mainly through reading and writing, you can’t say that spoken language is “secondary” to them. Not at all. You can still find tribes today with no written language, but never find any of them mute. Speech (or sign) language is innate in us.
you speak with such pseudo-ness
It must be extremely frustrating having such an active and introspective mind and not being able to express it to people who either can’t or don’t want to understand. You say you were at a low reading level, but what you’ve written here shows exact precision and calculated effort in constructing a narrative. From this comment, I can tell that you are a perfect example of what Chomsky is trying to explain about language and the human mind; each of us are programmed biologically to process thoughtforms and complex ideas into organized sequences of information.
You do this in a way that is significantly different than most humans, in a way it’s more primal and closer to your sensory nervous system. Most people, as you note, use language as a tool to communicate abstractions that aren’t related to the immediate states or objects being discussed; you have a “feeling” for milk, which you learned to identify as what the other person wanted to hear when the topic of milk was broached. This is functionally no different than what other people do, but is radically different experientially.
You might be forgiven for thinking this is a major setback or shows a lack of understanding, but I think this indicates that you understand reality more clearly than others. My idea of “milk” is a cold, unfeeling archetypal form which exists as a tool to be called upon when constructing a relational statement or observation. I don’t “feel” milk, nor do I have any innate emotional attachment to the idea at all. It’s just an empty shell to parade around as an idea, a vessel for purpose that can take as many forms as is necessary to communicate a greater point. People like me are very easily caught up in misinformation and lies, because we have no emotional connection to the words being used, only the implied message. If someone uses a word to subliminally evoke a certain emotion or association, it is extremely hard for me to notice or control my reaction, because the entire process goes on subliminally. Being able to “feel” words and use them in a way that calls on primary sensory awareness makes you automatically immune to doublespeak or manipulation tactics. Big words and complex ideas can turn well meaning people into raving zealots who willingly surrender their sensory awareness to ideological thoughtforms and belief systems. I have such a deeply embedded disconnect of communication and feeling, it’s almost impossible for me to understand something that you experience daily. Kudos to you for being who you are and helping people like me to understand our weaknesses and shortcomings, and how we can be better people.
Noam moves his hands more than the guy doing sign language.
On a side note it's weirdly the first time I've seen him talk with an interpreter next to him.
Funny that I was wondering if he could apply the discussion to the guy doing translation with sign language and right then and there, Chomsky references the guy.
A magic moment. Chomsky is marvellous.
i just read a study on inner voice not being present in everybody. i think the statistic was 1/4 experience inner dialogue
I often have stims or ticks when confronted with a conflicting emotion. It's not uncommon to find myself grunting at a train of thought where, I assume, it's my subconscious stopping said train of thought from developing in to a greater issue by being overwhelmed. These grunts or noises can range from a simple low-pitched grunt as if in distaste or a loud tourettes-like squeaks.
In company, it's not so noticeable as my focus is purely in the subject, not what's going on inside my head. Only when I recluse and retreat in to myself do I find this inner critic free to play.
Love how Chomsky just casually drops the whole "some things aren't access me to consciousness" like that's not a massive fuckin deal. "I dunno, there shit you do that you can't know why you do it or where the instruction comes from, what do you want?"
all .the respect to the founder of the linguistic moderne and grammar generative the human kind sometimes all the human they are sometimes thoughts without language's the thought tourne in circle in mind
God! His range is simply astounding.
I noticed a few times that it is rather easy to force unconsciousness manifest itself, at least for me and in my case, for a short periods of time. Such a period lasts a second at most.
Here is the how I can sometimes provoke it: happens most of the time when I am doing a few things at the same time, thus overloading my conscious thought process, and if I suddenly shift my thought process trying to recall an embarrassing situation(this is the hard part, actually) I have been through recently I sometimes involuntarily mumble or produce a grunting noise. Which is funny. Because the mind/consciousness scrambles to stop this uncontrolled blurt of a noise/word and I catch myself thinking about myself as if I was talking in third person about myself to someone else, saying: "somebody, shut him up!". I always chuckle afterwards, because the whole thing is awkward and uncontrollable, but still funny, because it feels like you have been caught with your pants down, with the difference that it is you who caught yourself and in fact nobody notices you were out of control of the situation, a kind of a situation where you amused yourself unexpectedly.
The other one is purely incidental trick I discovered water skiing or when I flipped watwrscooter. At the moment I hit the water upside down submerging my body into water at head first, I figured that my mind got confused because the vestibular sensing was telling that something is wrong and centrifugal force and inertia was doing a number on my sensation of orientation in space(hitting water upside down from a good speed) and water blurring the vision and noises of bubbles inside my ears and with a sensation of water going through the nostrils has caught me completely unexpectedly and got me perplexed. Everything was in such a slow mo I could not believe it, so my perception of time was off by at least a magnitude. I was again out of any ideas except that I recall the raw sensations, like sudden jerk, taste of water through my nose, the suspense and it was not my rational usual self who was thinking all this stuff through and experiencing the event. I recall vividly, as if the usual me, who I am, has been temporarily knocked out and alter me took over. This is something I never experienced before. This guy is me yet, I do not know him. Surely, it was unconciousness.
I wonder if anybody had experienced similar things and I also wonder if shrooms or acid/psychedelics induced trips feel anywhere similar. I have never tried those.
Álvaro de Bazán you are stupid as fuck,what he said acually makes sense if you know some psychology
You are correct about psychadelics. Your brain released some stuff so you felt that way, in the same way psychadelics release the same stuff in your brain so you feel and think and preserve everything different(But are still feeling 100% "sober"/clear headed, like you are aware of that you are in the situation). If any of that made sense? It is hard to explain to people with no experience, since human communication is very poor compared to what's inside our head.
The same thing happened to me in a car accident. It all happened so fast in reality but when I experienced it, everything was moving slow almost as if I was watching myself during the crash and actually IN the crash at the same time.
aleph null Thank you for the anecdotes. I know psychedelics can induce the states you describe. Such awareness can be amusing, or noisy/overpowering, or a sort of near death disassociation that grants you access as an observer to your body’s sensations. Like you overloading your conscious mind. Unfiltered and unrefined experience of moments can break open your sense of a discreet self.
The first example - definitely yes. And in my case it's always triggered by that feeling of the "other" being embarrassed and the collision of the two "voices".
3am thoughts
Noam Chomsky, The Great!
This is such a tricky one for me, I haven't been able to fully grasp it yet and I've been trying for years. It feels related to the nature of consciousness debate somehow. Obviously, language is a tool and it stands to reason that its selection is limited and you can't fully express everything due to the nuance and complexity of perceived reality. But to say that I can think in a conscious, structured sense, without language, is not something I can accept. Obviously my brain processes things all the time without my aware involvement, like a fly, but purposely think? I think not. What remains if you take away my words though, is entirely unclear.
The reason this occupies me is because I tend to tell people that postmodernism applied to language undermines our ability to think. The comeback is usually: I don't need language to think.
Thank you sir🙏 for this great info
Yes, internatl thought is often fragmentary and extra-linguistic: Read James Joyce's 'Ulysses' to see how he produces the realities of internal thinking.
By the time the video hits 0:42 the question is already answered
I don't think she even knew what she was asking.
3:08 That moment when the speech is so nice that the sign language interpreter stops for a moment to enjoy it and just forgets to keep on translating.
The worst part about languages they took away my true name and nature of my own thoughts
Language Do Not Exist.
Feeling has No Language.
Heart has Beating.
Eyes have Sight.
Eyes Speak of Your Heart.
Love has No Words, Explaination, Realisation.
The World is Myth.
It is libet experiment or libet paradox.
If the unconscious is inaccessible, how would one go about discovering its properties?
yes, thats is what I thought, maybe through some indirect means?
Inaccessible intuitively or objectively? Chomsky has pointed out many times that many things we've learned about in life ultimately require huge paradigm shifts and acceptance of things that are highly rational, but deeply unintuitive, like gravitation or 'force at a distance' for example. It took hundreds of years for people to accept this and thousands and thousands for people to figure it out. But that doesn't make it untrue, just difficult to grasp. Conciousness, decision making and free-will might be in that realm too. But it might even be in the realm of the purely unknowable.
Nathan Dehnel because the unconsciousness is occurring as neurological activity then at least it's occurrence may be recorded or observed (tho probably not understood) through brain imaging
its only inaccessible to the own person, not to others (science, psychology)
what about hipp? no sis!!!
at 4:10 he is talking about the work of Ben Libet. Caused a big stir back in the 1970's when he first did the experiments and,,,,,the arguments continue today: March, 2022.
ua-cam.com/video/OjCt-L0Ph5o/v-deo.html
Brainwave activity is the unknown preventing further understanding in this field of expertise
Normally choms choms dosen´t uses his hands so much, I wonder if it is unconscious fight for he atention with sign lenuage guy.
ahahahahahaha
LOL
The fuck are you talking about? He often uses his hands when he talks.
he uses his hands all the time
WHY YOU ALWAYS LIE
When I meditate seeking the empty mind...in those few seconds of mindlessness, sometimes you become very aware of just how much is going on in that mindlessness....ovvero, in that nothingness, in that mindlessness, in that non consciousness there is a universe of experience which sometimes manifests itself in awesome INSIGHTS
Learning to think outside the parameters of linguistic rulesets is the greatest tool any conscious being can have. Contrary to chomskean thought, it does not take a tremendous amount of effort. Yogis have been teaching mindfulness for thousands of years. Fifteen minutes a day twice a day, it will unlock your mind to all the subconscious phenomena for you to explore. Your Siddhis, the ethereal vehicles, you’ll find out quickly (sub)conscious is a misnomer. It’s really more like a Larger Consciousness system VR experience where we learn lessons about growth and love and maturity and shit. The multiverse is out there awaiting your exploration, first you must learn to silence your mind. Again, Chomsky wring, it only takes a few weeks of practice.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm thats a no for me dawg
Read the Bhagavad Gita bro u will see
mindfulness is being present in union with a thought.. This is more of becoming one with the witness of the thought rather than mindfull of it. plus mindfullness has become such a fortune cookie philosophy/idea in today's self help "change" culture. It has lost its context to the act of turning off the mind
Julian Jaynes on the origins of consciousness.
good people on stage
He knows what he's talking about!
Thank You
You get all kinds of sources. Depends upon you to which to side with. That's what being conscious means.
I talk to myself all the time. Its the only way I am guaranteed an intellectual conversation.
When Chomsky said do signers sign to themselves did the sign guy, sign w@nker.
The last 30 seconds....surely it is an argument against libertarian free will. That most of what the mind is doing is subconscious, and it’s not a voluntary act that’s making decisions. It depends on the concepts defined “free will” “self” etc.
Dawkins tried to use that study as evidence against free will in a debate with a British Theologian. Held some high former position at the Anglican Church.
naughty professor
it impossible to thoughting without language because the language it just translated the thought maybe somethinges and somethinges no because somethinges we can't not translated our thinking with language.
Could they be represented with multiple words? Like how you can say “gaining pleasure from destruction.” I mean there’s infinite thought, but there’s also infinite arbitrary strings of words.
I guess there’s the issue that language is originally built around the thoughts and feelings of a child, because those are the ones who take to language the best.
Does anybody knows name of the guy Noam referring to(when he gives example with a hand)?
Probably Benjamin Libet. The results of his experiments (and others conducted since) bring into question the nature of free will. Chomsky seems to think this doesn't change anything but I (and many others) think it may have profound consequences.
@@chriswilliams1096 This just reduces down to a disagreement over the definition of consciousness. Free will occurs as a consequence of processing in the brain, which can be indexed by neural signatures. The argument seems to be that it is the brain deciding, rather than the conscious mind. Yet the conscious mind is a consequence of the operation of the brain, including motor preparation for actions. Whether you understand the ways in which the conscious mind operates within such a dynamic system seems to be the index of whether these results seem profound or mundane.
@Studentofgosset Indeed. It all comes down to definitions in the end.
All attempts to define 'brain', 'mind', 'conscious mind', 'subconscious mind' and 'free will' rely on conceptually separating parts which are, in fact, tightly and subtly integrated.
According to Libet, most (if not all) decisions that I make are actually happening at a deeper level of consciousness than I had previously believed. The consequences, to me, of discovering this feel quite profound.
On the other hand, in a more pragmatic sense, there is nothing I can do about this. Decisions get made (in some poorly understood fashion) and actions are taken. The outcome seems likely to be the same whether I understand the process or not. From this point of view the results could be viewed as mundane.
The only conclusion I can come to is "free will is not all it's cracked up to be". I am still pondering the implications, which are at least interesting.
Just for acknowledgement:
Actually Nietzsche very explicitly raised the question of unconscious thoughts.
I was about to say it
thanks for this comment, can you direct to the text in which he does that?
I would also like to know where he raises that question
One of the deepest remarks I have heard in years of reading philosophy and science. Philosophers and scientists alike do not generally conceive unconscious thought as a reality. It is hard for them to do so, in part because of a deep-seated dualism that goes back well before Descartes, in part because their intellectual life is all about thought. If you are a hammer, all you think about are nails. It is not by chance that one of the most salient words in philosophy, logos, means both word and reason. This whole mess comes to the fore when neuroscientists try to understand, using for example functional imaging techniques, how we make decisions. These experiments show that regions of the brain involved in the decision become active milliseconds before a conscious decision is made. Often taken as evidence against free will, this is actually evidence that thought is largely prelogic (pre-conscious, pre-language). Art, which Benedetto Croce defined an 'alogical intuition', is all about this.
PS I am embarrassed and slightly flattered to say that I wrote this comment before Chomsky finished, so he beat me to the punch on the decision thing... not surprisingly...
"Philosophers and scientists alike do not generally conceive unconscious thought as a reality. It is hard for them to do so, in part because of a deep-seated dualism that goes back well before Descartes"
- Worthless and generalized opinion which you could hardly ever falsify.
"It is not by chance that one of the most salient words in philosophy, logos, means both word and reason."
- There are many different definitions of the word 'logos', you just picked one that suits you.
"Often taken as evidence against free will, this is actually evidence that thought is largely prelogic (pre-conscious, pre-language)"
- This is nothing but your opinion, don't misconstrue this as fact.
"in years of reading philosophy and science"
- Maybe you should go back to some introductory reading on generalized statements, validity of logical argumentation and the difference between rationalism and empirism.
@@TheRaveJunkie Maybe you shouldcrawl back into your basement and write some community college applications.
@@senecanzallanute4066 Great comeback, buddy.
@@TheRaveJunkie compared to your silly comment, it was genius.
@@senecanzallanute4066 'Sgt Killjoy" ; Username checks out.
If language is to think with, then does it mean a least some animals can also think complexly, but just doesn't have the ability to sound it out?
to answors to this question ❓️ that somethinges we just thoughting with not translated to language's with not spike or spoke or say I called the froget of memory the minds froget
Haha. Chomsky just incidentally refuted Sam Harris' big lecture on lack of free will.
Here's more: ua-cam.com/play/PLHZGTTZG6HcI8y4a1OS-L7I610YWh0KyA.html
can you elaborate?
Not really. Chomsky said that the neuroscience experiments showing people aren't aware of their own decisions when they're made doesn't prove the non-existence of free will. Sam Harris made the same point, so both Chomsky an Harris agree on this point. Harris's argument against free will doesn't rely on brain scans. His argument is that even if we know every detail about the decision making process, it's still a mystery as to how the decision is made. We still aren't the authors of our thoughts.
+Green Brain Seaside
Harris, unless I'm mistaken, used these psych experiments to speciously argue that because humans appear to have not known which decision they were going to make, until a brain scan had already detected which decision they were going to make, then they aren't free agents. Chomsky, very brieflly, points out that there is a huge disconnect between the somewhat startling results of that experiment, and the conclusion that we aren't free or the decision-makers.
+Rafat Islam
That's not what I recall Harris saying about that experiment. Are you willing to refute me? I agree that Harris argued upon much more than that experiment. It was a focal point though.
See this is where I still think Chomsky's point holds water and suggests the non-sequitur of Harris' argument. If as you say, Harris' argument is that because "it's still a mystery as to how the decision is made" and therefore "we still aren't the authors of our thoughts" then I think his argument is totally insufficient. It may be totally valid that we don't know what chain of events leads to our decisions, but that doesn't mean we didn't make them, or are, as you say, the authors of our thoughts. That experiment merely means, (if accurately done) that in a very particular decision making scenario, our consciousness of the decision lags the decision itself. That really doesn't say anything about who/what caused the decision or about whether alternatives were possible or a plethora of other questions we might want to know.
One of the many problems with Harris' talk, and our subsequent conversations, is that free will was never even defined. That was sort of pathetic for a famous intellectual of supposed repute. How do you have a multi-hour argument about free-will and never limn/adumbrate your topic for the audience?
A side note: Graziano's Attention Schema Theory(AST) seems almost the conclusion naturally consequent of this psych experiment.
Some questions to answer in our discussion: Is free-will the ability to choose/make a decision that then happens? Then AST and the psych experiment and Chomsky all seem to agree that free-will is very much intact, because, our awareness of when a decision is made says nothing about if or what made that decision. If we are going to be 'incompatiblists', then again we've learned nothing because we know nothing about whether determinism is true or not.
I like AST because it fits nicely into evolution and explains why and how consciousness developed. From an naturalistic worldview, accepting biology, evolution etc., it's almost a requirement that free-will exist. Why would nature go through all that effort to create a 'hardware' for analyzing, for making meaning and sense out of our external environment, if that 'data' then couldn't be fedback into us and interpreted and implemented for successful behaviors, ie. living, health, reproduction.
What principle did he mention at the end?
It's not true that people speak with themselves all the time, or most of the time. You can learn how to be silent and assimilate that ability so that you become silent and observant/focused most of the time. In time, it becomes your second nature and casual speaking with oneself feels ackward, if not crazy.
I like Chamsky, he is slav.
@1:10 interesting that noam was about to talk to him.
2:20 "kind of like the ??? you know, the right word"
What did he say there? I can't tell
the unconscious realm can be accessible through lucid dreams.
when it's made accessible, it's not unconscious
@@SaschaHusenbeth isn't it paradoxical?
Yeah it is. Moral of the story: "the unconscious" is just the term used in our paradigm for things we cannot explain or affect or understand - the mystical. Since we as a society tend to try to rationalise things that are irrational, since we try to understand things scientifically that are impossible to understand scientifically, we use freud's term - freud was obsessed with finding a scientific metanarrative that could explain all human behaviour and with finding scientific methods with which to "uncover" the "hidden truth". Yet another example of humans not admitting that some things cannot be explained the way gravity or explosions can be.
Half of the interpreter's words are cut off and rendering his speech very difficult to understand -_-
on the topic of consciousness I often find that ramblings are happening in the back of my brain when I'm not thinking or behind other thoughts, more often then not completely incoherent maybe a mixture of the show I just watched and the things happening in my life, kind of like a narrator but not actually reflecting the things around me and as soon as I tune in it will stop, my thoughts are maybe it's the other half of my brain the half that can't control speech but I have no way to know, heres a video on the fact that you are really two people ua-cam.com/video/wfYbgdo8e-8/v-deo.html
Not the day I watched this, but I hope it helps.
35
To him who holds in his hands the Great Image (of the invisible Tao), the whole world repairs. Men resort to him, and receive no hurt, but (find) rest, peace, and the feeling of ease.
Music and dainties will make the passing guest stop (for a time). But though the Tao as it comes from the mouth, seems insipid and has no flavour, though it seems not worth being looked at or listened to, the use of it is inexhaustible.
Instrumental music is the only universal language, encompassing everything words can and can't, and Chomsky doesn't like music. But, by golly, can he talk... 2:08, "that tells us something but not enough"...grr
he doesn't like music? source, please.
Jung and who??
Talking about what cannot be know even in principle is losing time. We assume some axioms and then build on them, like "free will exist" so...
It can't be assumed what can't be known, it needs to be established.
I would say 99% of thought isn't in language. And all those UA-cam videos with titles like, 'How to think in x language' or, 'how to stop thinking in your native language' from clueless people, selling themselves as experts on language learning, are absolute BS. They're usually from the same channels who tell their subscribers that "practicing speaking is how you get better at speaking." 🤦♂️
Jung I feel gets closet or psychedelic states show it
[2017] discovery from 2016.[LEak] noise. End
Poor Old Noam really should study AND PRACTISE an authentic meditation on the nature of mind before he bungs on about "what is known/not known" or what really is the relationship between ideas, inside voices, language and words spoken. Total nonsense from one who ONLY HAS an intellectual understanding ABOUT the mind ... rather than OF THE MIND. Sadly, the questioner and the audience are going to leave with yet another false set of impressions about this very important topic. Chomsky says "not much research has been done about this". Bullshit. Thousands of years of research have been done about it in the East.
what the fuck is her "experiential process"?
Thought is not language.
Prove it.
@@collectorduck9061 Your thought is your reaction to the verbiage.
I mean, Freud literally called it "unconscious" for a reason. I don't understand how such a brilliant person as Chomsky has such a horrible understanding of psychoanalysis, even though he says he read Freud.
I think you're completely misunderstanding the point. Freudian unconscious does not deal with truly unconscious things with no real input from the conscious, thinking mind. Freudian unconscious was encoded by the conscious with minor exceptions at certain phases of life; the unconscious that Professor Chomsky is referring to is the signaler, if that makes any sense. It's almost like the binary of our thoughts if you'd prefer it that way. Freud's theory of unconscious and accessing the unconscious mainly dealt with the surfacing of subconscious thoughts for the treatment of his patients (following the previous analogy, this would be closer to assembly or a high-level programming language), which is totally understandable when you realize that the man was a doctor treating patients - not a psychologist. He wasn't super concerned with the theoretics, per se, as he was primarily concerned with the treatment of his patients, and in these treatments, he developed his theories. The two types of unconscious here are entirely different. Freudian unconscious might include the one Professor Chomsky is talking about by virtue of just being an incredibly broad term, but Freud goes into zero detail on it; since he goes into such little detail, and the two different types are radically different from each other, Professor Chomsky believes that distinction is important.
No, it is you the one who doesn't understand Freud. I don't know if you've ever read him, but he never used the term "subconscious", and he even took the trouble to state why he was against the term. You are right in that Freud was a doctor treating patients, but he goes into quite a bit of detail about what the unconscious is and how does it work. It would not be an exageration to say that the theory of the unconscious makes up a very large portion of Freud's lenghty oeuvre. Freud's unconscious is not as broad a term as you make it out to be. He does develop different theories about it, and that may confuse some readers, but he always gave an accurate description on his currents thoughts on the matter. Even if the unconscious to Freud wasn't always that which is inaccessible to conscience, he arrives to that conclusion throughout his carreer, and that is one of the most important turning points of his theory (although he didn't ignore the fact before, just didn't stated as clearly). He literally introduced the "id" to account for this share of the unconscious mind. Psychoanalytic technique takes this into account, and transference - the instrument Freud used to treat his patients- is built around it.
Chomsky just doesn't want to be associated with Freud, and that's understandable. But he only needed to clarify that he wasn't talking about the freudian unconscious. There's no need to spread information that's factually wrong, and that's very easy to verify, even with a shallow understanding of psychoanalysis.