Re: Symbol Grounding Problem (attn: Vend)

On Tue, 01 May 2007 01:38:10 GMT, Neil W Rickert
<rickert+nn@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

HMSBeagle <jsbach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:58:46 GMT, Neil W Rickert

This entire thread on c.a.p was referring to "meaning" as used by
biological entities in the world. It was not referring to "meaning"
as being exactly equal to "the textbook definition on the page."

As far as I know, "meaning" is used by English speaking people. Your
"biological entities" is far too broad.

It emphasized the difference nicely, I though. Especially if a
reader of this thread were to think that storing the ASCII sequence of
a textbook defn in a computer is in some way isomorphic to how humans
use meaning in their brains. It is clearly not isomorphic, and
that's a soft way of saying it. A more concrete what of saying it ->
The two are not even a good analogy.

I'm not even sure why you are arguing that. I have been opposed to
the dictionary definition idea of meaning, and have been criticizing
it hear for years. Yet you respond as if that is what I am assuming.

I said I don't beleive in ungrounded symbol systems anymore. You
challenged me about pure mathematics not existing. I showed that pure
mathematics is not contained in what I was talking about, and
therefore is not a counter-example to "prove me wrong".
ol and its defn, does not copy

A mathematician, upon seeing a new symb
the ACTUAL CHARACTERS of the defn on the page and store it up in his
android memory bank, from which he may spew out the characters again
when requested for its meaning.

That's not actually relevant to my point, which is that pure
mathematics is abstract and is not grounded in reality.

I agreed that within its own set-theoretic framework (of textbook
defns) it is ungrounded, yes. But I made very clear the distinction
between brain-Meaning and textbook-defn-Meaning, since they are wildly
unequal to each other.

I also demonstrated WHY a deductive system must be ungrounded.
To recapitulate: If a deductive system were grounded in the way
natural language is, it would become inconsistent rather quickly.
Exemplar: "This sentence is false."

That's the part that is laughable. Grounding isn't what allows
the liar paradox.

Grounded symbol systems (eg natural language) have a contextual
substrate of speaker and listener. Deductive proofs in math do not.
A hilbert-style proof does nothing more than connect the logical dots
between statements that are "already true" within the "platonic
system" of symbols from whatever-branch-of-math. If they were
grounded in objects, that means there is a perceiver. And there is no
"perceiver" in the axioms of set theory. Natural language is built
upon common perception of the world between speaker and listener.
Deductive proof in math in hinged on nothing but axioms. Two
different things entirely.

Natural language goes from the "wild panorama" of biological sense
organs up INTO the system of agreed-upon symbols. This is precisely
what groundedness means. Deductive math never leaves the symbolic
universe. If it did, you get these loopholes where one can make
self-referential statements, since the "wild panorama" would naturally
contain them.


Rather the mathematician integrates the defn into his RATHER
GROUNDED system of understanding things.

This is a typical non-mathematician's misunderstanding.

A veiled ad hom?

No. I'm just correcting the record. As far as I know, saying that
somebody has a typicl view isn't usually considered ad hominem.

I was about to say you know nothing about me or my level of education.
But I held myself back from typing this.
Are you going to tell me you are a post-doc mathematician at Stanford?
But what are we going to do now? Spiral into a litany of ad homs and
personal attacks? Is that what you are here for? Are you looking
for a dick-measuring contest?



Mathematical proof systems (or Deductive Systems if you like) are
ungrounded within their own set-theoretic framework. In fact, very
careful attention is paid to keeping them ungrounded. This is done
because you cannot make meta-lingual references in the sentences of
the language. (eg. "This sentence is false."). Why? Because it
produced paradoxes of the barber shaving himself, the set of all sets,
the set of things that are not pink elephants, and other illogical
nonsense of that nature.

Thanks for a good laugh.

I wasn't making a joke.

Right. But it was laughable, nonetheless.


However you are confusing the biological meaning of a word with its
defn.

Your mistake.

What was my mistake again?

Incorrectly assuming that I take "meaning" to be something like a
dictionary definition.


You made that mistake not me. When you claimed that deductive systems
are "ungrounded" and thus stand as an examplar of "proving me wrong"
about ungrounded symbols systems not existing. I stand by my claim.
I still do not beleive ungrounded symbol systems exist. Your claim
that deductive systems in math are counter-examples showed that YOU
(not me) were confusing dictionary defns with the meaning of symbols
in mathematicians' heads.



In mathematics the defns are stated unambiguously so that any
time a symbol appears a pure substitution can be made without any
loopholes for interpretation.

I guess you are not aware of the non-standard mathematics (based
on non-standard interpretations).

Non-standard analysis is still used in consistent axiomatic systems.

However, the existence of non-standard analysis contradicts your
assertion about "loopholes for interpretation."

I meant "mathematics" in terms of "what working mathematicians do".
I meant within the context of a hilbert-style proof (aka a "rigorous
proof") there are no loopholes for interpretation. I did not mean
"mathematics" in terms of "foundational mathematics where we juggle
axioms however we feel like it." (Hilbert himself called this
meta-mathematics. )

During the substitution of defn for symbol, there IS NO loophole for
interpretation. That is a fact and that is what I typed. This is a
fact even within the confines of non-standard analysis.
The bulk (99.99%) of working mathematicians do not juggle axioms in
metamathematical ways. Most of them do work within the confines of
their system. Every once in a while they attend siminars on
"Foundational Issues" but this is so rare its not even worth talking
about let alone ASSUMING "that's what Rickert meant all along in his
posts".

There are loopholes for interpretation within the axioms themselves,
yes. However, this doesn't mean mathematics is entirely
interpretational because it simply is not. Even non-standard analysis
uses rigorous proof.



That's all dogma. I expect the Chomskyans might agree. But I take
an atheistic view to the religion of Chomskyan linguistics, and I
reject the dogma you asserted. Where is the supportive evidence
on how toddlers understand speech?

There is evidence of a common inflection in "baby talk" used by
mothers regardless of the actual language they speak.

Not particularly relevant.

Chomsky points out that turning a statement into a question would be
much easier by simply reversing the words in the sentence. Why does
no human language use this simple technique?

That's one of the sillier Chomsky arguments.

I find it rigorous and persuasive.

That's because you are beholden to Chomskyan dogma, despite your
protests to the contrary.

I like how you use this flowery language to avoid having to address
the actual content of the argument that I typed up. Is it wrong
because "Chomsky said it"? That's not an acceptable way to
demonstrate something.


Let me make my position clearer. There are certain things that are
studied, that are called languages. They fit into a Chomsky hierarchy
of languages. They have grammars, and expressions are valid only if they
conform to those rules of grammar.

If that is what is meant by the word "language", then I am saying
that NATURAL LANGUAGES ARE NOT LANGUAGES AT ALL.

I agree.

Yet, a few paragraphs below, you demonstrate that you don't agree.

But just because I agree to one thing that Chomsky wrote
doesn't mean I'm some sort of zealous acolyte of everything he ever
wrote.

I haven't assumed that. For example, I make no assumptions as
to whether you support Chomsky's strong political positions on
foreign policy.

I would
hope that you would address my actual posts, rather than some paranoic
interpretation of yours that you think I'm trying to "get at".

Perhaps you failed to notice that I have been addressing your actual
posts, including your use of Chomsky's arguments on language.

The brain (or, more properly, the person) uses simpler languages.
Natural language looks complex when we try to fit it into the
framework of a language, as typically defined. But natural language
does not fit that framework, and it is this misfit that gives the
false appearance of complexity.

There is absolutely a false appearance of complexity!! In fact, I
addressed that rather clearly. Within the brain itself, the
(outwardly) more complex grammer rules are favoured, because at the
neuronal level, that (outwardly) more complex grammer rule is more
efficient for neuronal groups to use.

And there you contradict your "I agree" from a few paragraphs back.

The complexity happens on a sentence-by-sentence basis. You are using
"complexity" as if it is something that arrises from the CORPUS OF ALL
GRAMMAR RULES written down by linguists. I never made any
concessions to such a thing, and I don't intend to in the future.
And you meant the "complexity" arrises because some of the grammar
rules are not followed in practice by humans, thus giving rise to a
"complexity". But I'm not entirely convinced Chomsky made the
argument in these terms. I assumed he meant that the grammer rule,
taken all by itself in one single sentence is COMPLEX to compute all
by itself. That is precisely what I wrote too.


You are totally correct. The complexity is superficial only.

But this is precisely Chomsky's point. The brain of humans has
PECULIARITIES that are formed from the tug-and-pull of natural
selection.

If Chomsky actually said that, I would like a citation.

I may be confusing him with Pinker here.


The effictiveness (at the
neuronal level) of complex grammer rules is due to many more factors
than straight computational symbol-juggling.

Perhaps I still wasn't clear. My position is that natural languages
are not grammatical systems, and that brains are not following
grammar rules. Grammars are invented by linguists, and imposed
on languages, to help those linguists in their systematic study of
languages. But the grammars never quite fit (much as Boyle's law
doesn't quite fit). You get ever more complex grammars when you
try to fix up your grammar to make it closer to fitting, instead
of simply accepting that languages don't fit our imposed grammars.


Right. This paragraph demonstrates what you meant by "complex".
"Complex" to you means the ENTIRE GRAMMAR SYSTEM is complex after you
collect all the rules up in a pile.

That is not what I meant when I used it. What I meant was a singular
rule of grammar, taken all by itself in one single sentence is
complex. In fact, it is more complex than it needs to be.

So when the smoke clears, either HMSBeagle has read Chomsky
incorrectly, or Neil W Rickert has read him incorrectly. It is
certainly one of us, and we will have to go to his actual writings to
find out which one of us it is!

Chomsky said "There is no way a child could have simply learned the
complexities of language by itself using imitation alone. There must
be a deep grammar in the genes of toddlers."
And I hope we don't disagree on THAT point since I'm going to
springboard off it now with this:

[1] Did Chomsky mean this complexity is in the GRAMMAR SYSTEM taken as
a whole?

[2] Or did he mean the particular grammar rules in isolation, taken
one at a time, are extremely
complex/non-intuitive/wasteful/hard-to-compute ?

HMSBeagle claims [2] is what Chomsky said. Rickert says Chomsky
said [1].



I can assure you that the COMPUTER CODE for reversing the words in a
sentence is far far simpler than the bizarre litany of phrase-juggling
nonsense children use to convert a declaration into a question.

And this after you denied that you are a follower of Chomsky :(


Okay. I'm starting a new thread on this immediately.


However, the answer as to why the MORE COMPLEX grammer rule is used by
humans is because it is (biologically) more efficient to implement in
neuronal groups.

The reason that more complex grammar rules are used by humans, is that
Chomsky says so, and you are a true believer in Chomskyan linguistics.

Please refrain from referring to me as a "true beleiver". It is
insulting. I am a rational, literate adult. I'm telling you right
now that I am going to start this up in a new thread, because there is
a clear difference between what you are claiming Chomsky wrote and
what I have actually read in his work.


As you can see from looking out your window, Natural Selection favours
efficiency at the cost of complexity.

When I look out the window, I am likely to see members of the
homo sapiens species. Although a successful species, they are
highly wasteful, and are causing global climate change with their
wastefulness. That's hardly an example of efficiency.


The process of Natural Selection is not equal to "what humans do" with
oil and coal.

My claim stands. Natural Selection favours efficiency at the expense
of complexity. Quote me.


When we say that a phrase has a "referent", we mean to say literally,
that among a common population with a common culture and a common
language, there is some socially-agreed-upon "proper" referent object.

But there isn't. Reference varies with context.

You are correct that there are cases where the referent is
interpretational.
However, there has to exist a socially-agreed-upon proper referent,
somewhere in the mix.

Why does there have to exist such a "proper referent"? And wouldn't
the existence of a "proper referent" prevent meanings from changing
over time?

If there were no proper referent, communication between two human
beings would never exist.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Symbol Grounding Problem (attn: Vend)
    ... challenged me about pure mathematics not existing. ... natural language is, it would become inconsistent rather quickly. ... I am not here as an acolyte of Chomsky. ... But there is grammar in language and demonstrably so. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: Symbol Grounding Problem (attn: Vend)
    ... challenged me about pure mathematics not existing. ... natural language is, it would become inconsistent rather quickly. ... Chomsky claims that reversing the words would be a grammatically ... takes that as evidence for an innate universal grammar. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: The Minimalist Program
    ... neurolinguistics better than any other metaphor or analogy that might ... I don't think Chomsky himself has ever claimed that generative ... grammar has neurological under pinning. ... He has absolutely no interest in e.g. language ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: THE QUIZ...
    ... >>>You are of course free to use 'language' in this very broad sense. ... > Grammar is what it is, irrespective of the theoretical approach or model. ... by Chomsky, however, not a practical one; ... language in animals - I did not study linguistics and Chomsky but I ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Symbol Grounding Problem (attn: Vend)
    ... It was not referring to "meaning" ... the ACTUAL CHARACTERS of the defn on the page and store it up in his ... mothers regardless of the actual language they speak. ... That's one of the sillier Chomsky arguments. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)