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Article 4756 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas)
Subject: Re: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar27.130652.23929@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
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Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
References: <1992Mar25.080515.20086@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar25.185007.21788@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar26.003003.20515@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 13:06:52 GMT
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This posting is an answer to both Neil Rickert's and Charles Onstott's previous articles

In article <1992Mar26.003003.20515@a.cs.okstate.edu> onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR) writes:
>In article <1992Mar25.185007.21788@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

NR:
>>  Chimpanzees are highly intelligent animals, although they do not have
>>anything we would consider language.  On the other hand, songbirds seem
>>substantially less intelligent, but they do possess some kind of language.

Body movements form a language too, with which one can express pain, fear, 
love or whatever.

How do you understand if a dog tells you something? Do dogs have poor language?

NR:
>>Machine languages have been around for a while, and if that were all that
>>were needed to make a machine intelligent we would not have these
>>interminable discussions on the CR and related topics.

OC:
> You realize, of course, that by saying this you are already falling
>into the trap I am avoiding. You can not make the statement about computers-
>having-languages-and-not-necessarily-intelligent and at the same time
>maintain that birds-have-a-remedial-language and are thus less intelligent.
>The problem I am getting away from is our necessity to understand language
>as having anything to do with intelligence.  Particularly from the
>standard top-down approach.

If you define language as a means of communication and you say that this
form of communication occurs only among intelligent (whatever this term means)
entities, then language is defined in terms of intelligence.

On the other hand if you define intelligence by means of communication,
(and I suspect that this is what you are doing, if I understand right
your criticism to AI)
and in our case by means of language, then you still keep the dependency
in a reverse form.

NR:
>>  The most important aspect of human language is that it is a digital system.
>>In effect language has digitized humans.  

Is there any relevance with Marcuse's theories?

OC:
> It hasn't digitized humans. It has, and here I am not sure that I fullly
>commit, only digitizied their outputs.  Humans are quite capable of thinking
>beyond the realms of language. You must let go of your hang-up on language.

I am not sure if thinking about something that you cannot express (with words, 
paintings, sounds, etc) has any meaning even to yourself. In other words I have 
difficulties to accept that you can think beyond the realms of ANY language.

NR:
>>  It is not entirely certain whether the development of digital language
>>(the digits are the phonemes) is certain.  It could well be that some
>>cultures could have developed with purely analog languages.  But such
>>cultures would be at such a great disadvantage they would be expected
>>to die out once they come into competition with cultures with a digital

If I understand correct your definition of analog/digital language,
I can assume that telepathy is for you an analog language.
Why is this form of language dissantvantageus?

OC:
>Ok, so this is why you think language is digital.  It isn't digital,
>you are just applying a digital analysis to it.  Even an analog meter
>can be thought of in digital terms.(ie, it is here NOT there).

What is an analog meter?

NR:
>>                           Language is a product of the ability of the
>>analog recognition system to make sufficiently fine distinctions that
>>it can recognize individual phonemes as digits.  The effective use of
>>language is partly a product of the underlying analog intelligence.  But,
>>being digital, language provides a technology which is essentially
>>arbritarily extensible.

OC:
> First, language is not digital.  Second, it is, as you have agreed,
>a technology.  Third, the intelligence comes before the language.
>Bickerton maintains that language came before the intelligence.

If technology (do you mean the ancient greek 'texvn'?)
is a result of intelligence and language comes before intelligence,
then I do not see on what wayis the language a technology.

Philip Santas

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