23 Apr Form and Substance in Communication
Form vs. Substance If the substance is H2O, the form may be solid ice, liquid water or gaseous steam. What about language? We’ve talked about different language phenomena, including spoken, written and digitally stored language. Is the medium the form and the content the substance of language, or is there more? Saussure, a founder of the European flavor of structural […]
22 Apr Breaking Down Language Structure and Function
Grammar Acquisition Some experts suggest that a correctly formulated adult grammar is acquired by children on the basis of sentences they hear in their first few years (Pinker, 1984, p. 5). The proponents of this theory assume that a young child perceives sentence structure or is able to detect elements of grammatical structure – a […]
19 Apr Learning by Doing or Active Osmosis
Intuition When people use their native language, they don’t usually think about how verbs are supposed to be conjugated. They don’t stop to figure out number agreement, transitivity, or aspect. They just talk. Intuitions about language are probably not based on the grammar rules that govern how parts of speech go together. Instead, these intuitions […]
18 Apr Irrational Language Rules
Language and Utterances Now let’s narrow the focus from communication to language. To avoid confusion, let it be clear from the outset that this discussion is not concerned with computer-programming languages, but “natural languages.” Computer languages have built-in or “prescriptive” regularity called a formal syntax. They are easy to describe, and they are obedient to […]
12 Apr Making a Pattern of Comprenshion
In A Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander points out that “…no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that it is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller […]
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 […]
09 Apr Abstract Contexts and Fuzzy Reasoning
We do not yet know how we remember things, nor do we know how we use remembered things in reasoning. The amazing feedback loops of afferent and efferent fibers between different layers of the cortex give us some amazing clues (Hawkins 2004). Today’s discussion of abstract contexts and fuzzy reasoning is intended as a bridge […]
08 Apr Symmetrical Logic and Lineage
Symmetry may not immediately appear as a principle of logic or reason, but it should. In mathematics we learn the commutative and associative properties of addition and multiplication. These represent a mirror-like symmetry. Symmetry, or invariance against change, is a fundamental principle of physics and an underlying assumption driving some logical decisions. Causality, for example, […]
07 Apr A Good Excuse for Heuristic Logic
Dichotomous logic is useful for reasoning about form or the way things are. Function, or cause and effect, however, is fuzzier because observation may not be enough to exclude other processes that lead to the same result. Heuristic logic applies to function instead of form, prescribing actions based facts. Heuristics often operate at a relatively […]
01 Apr Generating and Qualifying Propositions
What are the limits of reasoning? Is it possible to reduce every cognitive activity (telling time, falling in love, inventing rockets…) to a set of premises and conclusions: propositions? LITTLE ANIMALS ARE FURRY is a very simple proposition. Can intelligence be defined by the complexity of the sequence of propositions we can balance in evaluating a situation? I […]