Language, Sounds and Intelligent Design
- Thread starter Chu
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truepositive
Jedi
I guess that will keep me off the streets for a week or two, looking very interesting!
truepositive
Jedi
Chu, sorry for asking this before actually digging in;
Chomsky has felt a little off to me for a while but lacking quite a lot of background it's difficult to argue why exactly apart from some of his very recent interviews. I am very interested in language specifically in its uhm, inter-relationship with other scientific disciplines and particularly philosophy and metaphysical considerations of the description of things interacting with their state. Aside from some base level quantum waffle, Chris Langan comes to mind immediately as being the only person i know of to tie these two things together in a seemingly wholesome way thus far, but i digress on that particular avenue.
I have written a few posts in the past about information theory and everything computation related starting to weave into this topic wondering what it means and where it is heading, and whether we are heading in the right direction, thinking of Turing, Shannon, then everyone that followed 'recently' and i would assume a still on-going debate about the differences and overlaps between natural languages and formal/ constructed ones.
Who should i be reading to gain some insights from minds that did not get enticed by materialist reductionism in these fields, if that would indeed be the main criticism, and just in general too?
Chomsky has felt a little off to me for a while but lacking quite a lot of background it's difficult to argue why exactly apart from some of his very recent interviews. I am very interested in language specifically in its uhm, inter-relationship with other scientific disciplines and particularly philosophy and metaphysical considerations of the description of things interacting with their state. Aside from some base level quantum waffle, Chris Langan comes to mind immediately as being the only person i know of to tie these two things together in a seemingly wholesome way thus far, but i digress on that particular avenue.
I have written a few posts in the past about information theory and everything computation related starting to weave into this topic wondering what it means and where it is heading, and whether we are heading in the right direction, thinking of Turing, Shannon, then everyone that followed 'recently' and i would assume a still on-going debate about the differences and overlaps between natural languages and formal/ constructed ones.
Who should i be reading to gain some insights from minds that did not get enticed by materialist reductionism in these fields, if that would indeed be the main criticism, and just in general too?
Hmm, well, I can relate to that. For years I felt something was off, but he speaks with such authority and convoluted statements, that I assumed I was missing a big thing. Now, the more I read, the more I associate him with important characters like Freud.
Chomsky: "we have an innate capacity for language" (Freud: "we have a subconscious").
That's about it. a big important truth, but no substance. For the rest, he is such a materialist, that his theory avoids anything that doesn't have to do with computers or an alleged genetic endowment that nobody has seen yet, in spite of 20 years of searching.
Could you share the links, please? I'd be interested to read them.
If you want to get a pretty good overview of Chomsky's biais, you could read The Kingdom of Speech, by Tom Wolfe. It's not scholarly, and his conclusion is pretty useless IMO, but the review of the competing theories is very interesting and I think you'll see where the study of language became super materialistic.
For a perspective that, although not stated explicitly, makes "computational linguistics" look like a science in diapers, I would recommend "Metaphors we live by", by Lakoff and Johnson. Also not super scholarly, just an introduction. Then, if THAT interests you, "Cognitive Grammar" by Ronald Langacker (more technical but fascinating). These two show, in my opinion, that Shannon's theory was way too simple compared to Language. Also Reddy's, with his "conduit metaphor", if you are familiar with it.
That's what comes to mind based on what you say interests you:
You will have to expand based on your particular interest as you go along, but I think the books I mentioned above are much more worth it than reading all of Chomsky's work, which focuses almost exclusively on syntax, because he considers "mind" and meaning as being outside of the realm of science and "proper linguistics".
I hope this helps, though I'm far from being an expert in this area. I'm trying to wrap my head around it before making new videos, but it's tied to so much we think we know about language that it's a bit "intimidating".
Just wanted to add here that, sadly, I don't see a whole lot of debate. I think that the issue itself will become more prevalent because of AI and language modules, but in Linguistics proper, the comparisons between natural and formal languages only go so far. There is layer upon layer of complexity that doesn't exist in formal languages (nor in AI for the time being?). The Chomsky camp will explain that as "biological/physical/genetic endowment not yet found", different but similar types of "modules", etc. Most others don't seem to even bother comparing natural and formal languages, because for them, it's like comparing apples and oranges. I'm generalizing, of course. But the main problem I see is that both camps are still stuck in materialism. For the one, we are like computers; for the others, we are just an accident of nature, and evolved from monkeys. Anything that doesn't fit gets relegated to philosophy or psychology.