10 Apr Talking About Computational Linguistics
Computational Linguistics Today Massive strides have been made in the cognitive definition of thought, perception, culture and language. The interaction or kinship of all these elements of the human experience is also better defined. This combined work has increased our self-awareness and provided the basis for synthesizing and modeling automata to extend our abilities and […]
28 Mar Is Everything Black or White?
We have exercised our abstract ideas about that which is too big and chaotic for us to understand (everything), let’s take a glimpse at that which is so small and chaotic that we may never really figure it out: the workings of the mind. In the next few posts, we will examine different forms of logical […]
27 Mar Cognition and Emotion
I’m conflicted. I suspect you are too. “Since the time of the ancient Greeks, humans have found it compelling to segregate reason from passion, thinking from feeling, cognition from emotion. These contrasting aspects… have in fact often been viewed as waging an inner battle for control of the human psyche” (LeDoux, 1996, p. 24). In earlier […]
27 Feb Chomsky, Locke and Aristotle on Learning Language
Inherited Abilities In systems design, there is a growing trend to “hard code” less into the system and leave more to be configured by the person or organization that is using the software. The growth of Rules and Workflow Engines that can be managed by non-technical users is prime evidence of this trend. And yet, the complex instruction […]
25 Feb Discrimination, Association and Recognition
Discrimination Although discrimination has negative connotations, we do it every millisecond. We must discriminate between distractions and important information we see and hear. The environment is filled with ambient noise, sometimes so much so as to prevent understanding. Once we have filtered out the noise through discrimination, we must further discriminate between incorrect and correct interpretations of the […]
06 Feb Nature vs Nurture in Intelligence
The three deep roots of intelligence are biological (built into the flesh), cognitive (based on our unique mental responses to stimuli), and psychosocial (learned through culture-laden experiences). Language springs from the same roots, and becomes inseparably intertwined with intelligence. I came across this article in The Creativity Post that corroborated ideas I have been working on for […]
04 Feb Body Language in Understanding
How much can you hear without a word being spoken? How often does something about a person’s face, posture or hand gestures completely contradict the “normal interpretation” of the words they speak, creating a sense of sarcasm or other indirect message? To what extent are the academy awards influenced by an actor’s ability to use […]
11 Jan The Pedantic Querulous Shrinking Violet
How much do you know about a person when you first meet them? What can you learn from speaking with them, even through an hour-long interview? Are first impressions valid in any way? Socially, we understand that it takes a variety of experiences in different contexts to really get to know a person, yet our ability […]
10 Jan Shades of Meaning
I have been sharing my observations on the electrical behavior of the brain this month, with a brief glance at perspectives on perception. My work began, and may end with language. As my springboard into artificial intelligence, I’ve been trying for years to develop computer programs that can understand your intent and use that understanding […]
30 Dec Aristotle and von Neumann
In the 1950’s, John von Neumann compared the computer to the brain. Scientific inquiry that laid the foundation for that comparison, however, had begun long before. The influence of the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s association theory (metaphysics), for example, is evident in neural net theory. In The Computer and the Brain, Dr. von Neumann describes how […]