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What’s a thought? Could that chair have been water? Does perception precede production? What does it mean to know a language? How a why did humans end up acquiring the very complex (a ‘discontinuous’) linguistic capacity? How do we carry meaning detached from the real physical world? Do we reason axiomatically or algorithmically? Is semantics logical? Do non-human animals care about reasons? How different is our brain from the primates ‘right behind us’? Do the ‘number’ of brain areas matter; why? Does language have a tendency to structure itself? What is one innate with when one is born? Is the linguistic faculty inferential? Do languages, thoughts, artefacts and organisms co-evolve? How can’t language be? Do birdsongs carry information without grammatical structures? Can culture cause genetic changes? Is artificial language reflexive? How does a language talk about itself? Are non-human animals very serious? Can all languages express all thoughts? Are there thoughts that language cannot express? Can crows (say) evolve a ‘language’ in the distant future, or do we have an unassailable lead? SynTalk thinks about these a more questions using concepts from linguistics (Prof. Veneeta Dayal, Rutgers University, New Brunswick), logic a philosophy (Dr. Nirmalya Guha, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal), a cognitive neuroscience (Prof. Atsushi Iriki, RIKEN, Wakō, Japan). Listen in....