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Article 4759 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar27.154137.6740@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
References: <1992Mar26.223702.28641@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar27.002606.32145@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar27.224344.7150@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 15:41:37 GMT
Lines: 43

In article <1992Mar27.224344.7150@waikato.ac.nz> rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>In article <1992Mar27.002606.32145@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>> 
>>   It is pretty obvious that language enhances intelligence.  That is, the
>> intelligence with language exceeds the intelligence without language.  For
>> example it enhances knowledge acquisition.  You may wish to exclude knowledge
>> from your definition of intelligence, and I would concur with that.  But the
>> ability to acquire new knowledge is an important component of intelligence.

>I'm not sure if that's quite correct. Certainly we use language for a great
>deal of knowledge acquisition, but whether our knowledge acquisition through
>language is any more useful than other forms - perhaps forms we have neglected
>through our use of language - is still, I believe, debateable. I would agree
>that language helps in the communication of ideas, and hence the acquisition of
>knowledge from other intelligences, but does this make our intelligences any
>greater?

 You use language for much more than communication.  You use it to construct
models.  It is these mental models which are essential to knowledge
acquisition.  No doubt mental models are possible without language, but they
would be much simpler than the models we construct with language.

>>   Technology does more than communicate thinking.  Or perhaps I should even
>> say that communication does more than communicate thinking.  Communication is

>Communication is critical to society, but not (IMHO) to advanced 
>intelligence. I doubt that we will ever know whether an intelligence can 
>develop its potential without social interaction, but I suspect that it 
>could.

 You use language to communicate to others in society.  But you also use
language to communicate with yourself, and this latter aspect is important.
As an example, much of your memory of past events is due to the fact that
you have used language to reconstruct (i.e. model) the events, and you have
reviewed (through thought) these language models many times, refreshing your
memory as you do so.  Without this ability most newly acquired knowledge
would evaporate within a relatively short time.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940


