Watch the first half of the movie “Is the man who is tall happy?”, by Michel Gondry (2013), and answer the provided questionnaire.

Please answer the following questions, and upload your answers as a single document.

1. What is the relationship between language and memory? What evidence does Chomsky give for the hypothesis that children know a lot about language even before exposed to any linguistic input?

2. Why does the belief in reincarnation have anything to do with the theories of linguistics and language acquisition that Chomsky proposes?

3. What language did Chomsky study when he was young?

4. What ideas about education do Chomsky and Descartes share? How do these ideas make it possible for modern science to exist?

5. What does Chomsky mean when he says that Linguistics and Cognitive Science have not gotten to the Galilean stage in the development of science yet? How does this relate to the scientists strife to make a complex reality fit into a simple model, or to question common-sense assumptions?

6. Is Chomsky skeptical about the theory of evolution?

7. According to Chomsky, we have physical limitations that condition the way we perceive and understand the world around us. Can you give an example thats discussed in the interview?

8. How are modern linguists and philosophers mistaken about what the meaning of a word is? What is the referentialist assumption?

9. What mental property do we use to identify entities (e.g. dogs)?

10. What is the ship of Theseus? How does this relate to the problem of psychic continuity that Chomsky keeps talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv66xFD7s7g

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