Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas 329 | Steven Pinker on Rationality and Common Knowledge
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Sep 22, 2025 
Join cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor and acclaimed author, as he delves into the fascinating concept of common knowledge. He explains how shared norms and the awareness of those norms shape society—integral to everything from economics to social interactions. Pinker discusses real-world implications, such as public events creating common knowledge and the complexities of human behavior through recursive mentalizing. He also touches on the importance of nonverbal cues and the misinterpretations that can arise from communication.
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What Common Knowledge Actually Means
- Common knowledge requires not just shared facts but shared awareness that others share them across recursive levels.
- This layered mutual awareness enables coordination like driving rules and trust in currency.
Language As A Social Coordination Tool
- Language evolved to enable social coordination by creating conventions that people tacitly assume others know.
- Many indirect expressions (innuendo, euphemism) function to avoid making intentions common knowledge.
Spinach In Teeth Logic Puzzle
- In the 'spinach in teeth' problem the chair announces "at least one of you has spinach" then clinks a glass repeatedly.
- Three people with spinach clean on the third clink because common knowledge builds iteratively.
