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Article 4713 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar25.080515.20086@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: 25 Mar 92 08:05:15 GMT
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Lines: 157


    When one reads Derek Bickerton's _Language and Species_, 
one finds an unsurprising definition of intelligence: 
  
    1.) Language evolved.  
    2.) Language evolved from non language, to secondary 
    representation systems(SRS) to primary representation 
    systems(PRS) to protolanguages(Creole) to full language. 
    3.) With the systematic increase in language use, including 
    SRS and upwards, one can graduate an intelligence increase. 
    4.) The book analyzes intelligence from a linguistic 
    perspective, thus using language as indicative of 
    intelligence. 
    5.) The book then tries to show that humans are more 
    intelligent than other creatures by virtue of their 
    language(in a top-down analysis). Thus, we have the first 
    and primary problem of this book:  The tacit assumption 
    (without justification) that language determines 
    intelligence. 
 
    It is noteworthy at this point to state that the AI 
community generally accepts language as the determinant for 
intelligence.  Further, understanding by a machine can be arrived
at by means of giving a machine a language.(Even one capable of 
dealing with something as esoteric and remedial as a blocks 
world)  By 'language,' I mean not only the general languages of 
English or French, but the logical language upon which the entire
computer project relies. 
 
    At this time, I would like to reiterate a study of the 
phenomenology of understanding and intelligence which was given 
at a lecture by Hubert Dreyfus at Oklahoma State University on 
March 24th, 1992. The following comes from a paper he delivered 
entitled, "From Socrates to Expert Computer Systems: The Limits 
of Calculative Rationality." 
 
The outline goes like this: 
 
Utilizing a standard phenomenological study like that of 
Heidegger we realize two things: 
 
1.) The notion of intelligence and understanding as 
consisting of propositions and reductive methodologies 
traces back to Socrates who consistently demanded the 
"method" of how an expert comes to his conclusion.  The 
question posed then, and still today, is "Yes, I know your 
example, but how did you come to your conclusion?"  
 
2.) Expertness comes from the following method of learning: 
(NOTE, you must leave behind all prejudices towards  
logic-as-intelligence or else this study will never make any 
sense to you.) 
 
    A.) Novice - Needs precise rules and definitions to 
    understand the new field.  Such as the fundamentals of 
    mathematics.  Or in the case of driving, at which point 
    one uses the break peddle and at which point one uses 
    the gas peddle on, for example, making a turn. 
 
    B-D.) Experiments with the rules to determine new 
    outcomes.  Experiences an emotional component that 
    helps curve learning.  Mainly, the learner experiences 
    several cases.  As he advances from stage B to D he 
    begins to loose track of the specific rules given in 1 
    and begins to act more automatically.  Begins to 
    develop intuitive skills. 
 
    E.) Expert - Has an intuitive skills in his field.  
    Comes to conclusions without necessarily relying on 
    first principles.  Can not, without a painstaking  
    process which is never complete, provide a detail 
    account of "how" he came to the conclusion that he did. 
 
    If we remain perfectly honest with ourselves, we see that 
this phenomenological study is accurate.  We do, in fact, begin 
to get an intuitive feel for what we are doing.  Further, that 
feel is not necessarily one that is thought out in a language or 
in terms of first principles.  However, the expression of the 
conclusion is produced in a language. 
 
    Further, Dreyfus claims that this does NOT DISPROVE that 
there is some ultrafast first-principles calculation going on.  
However, it DOES shift the burden of proof TO the argumentation 
that there ARE first-principle calculations going on.  In other 
words, we can no longer accept the taken-for-granted belief that 
first-principles (or logical understandings) are the stuff that 
understanding is made of.  Rather, it is possible that 
understanding is prior to logical form. 
 
This is the end of the phenomenological study.  The rest of this 
argumentation is mine and will draw from Dreyfus's study and 
Heidegger. 
 
    In this argument, I am not trying to determine Being.  Thus, 
we will disregard the famous statement that "Being resides in the
house of language."(If anyone persists on this statement, I can 
provide an explanation for integration of this statement into my 
argumentation below.  Love those "ations.") 
 
    If we take Dreyfus's argumentation above to be acceptable 
and if we think purely in terms of Heidegger, it appears that 
language itself becomes a technology.  From the technological 
point of view, language serves the function of transmitting ideas
and symbolizing those ideas for alternative studies.(Which, no 
doubt, leads one to think of intelligence as a symbol system). 
 
    Accordingly, we realize that language is not the genesis of 
intelligence(thus, we can dismiss Bickerton's teleology towards a
language).  Further, we realize that language is itself a product
of intelligence.  Thus, leaving teleology aside and maintaining a
random-competitive model of evolution, language came about not 
because of some sort of direct evolutionary process;  rather, it 
came about as a product of an evolution that produced 
intelligence which, in turn, produced a language. (I am meerly
offering a counter-theory to an evolutionary stance made by 
Bickerton.  I am not certain that evolution is necessarily
THE model to maintain.)
 
    At this point, I have to differ from Dreyfus's 
argumentation by claiming that expertness can be arrived at 
without the means of a language.  I think that the 
phenomenological study provided by Dreyfus already took for 
granted the importance of language in determining intelligence.  
Whenever we think about the development of language itself, 
whether in young children or in primordial man, we realize that 
some experiential component is a necessary precondition for the 
development of the language itself.  Thus, language comes about 
through experience without needing explicit logical 
explanations(which would, in fact, be impossible without 
language).  Further, we become expert in language and THEN begin 
to utilize this technology to generate other forms of technology.
 
    Analysis of understanding using linguistic argumentation 
simply provides ontical descriptions of the language itself 
because language is shifted from the ready-at-hand to the 
present-at-hand.  In this way, the language-oriented AI project 
is doomed to fail because it attempts to reach intelligence by 
one of intelligence's tools--the communicative and symbolic tool. 

Further, it is impossible to think of an AI project that is not 
language based with the possible exception of neural networking. 
I say 'possible' because topological analysis of neural network 
behavior seems to provide a language.   
 
BCnya, 
  Charles O. Onstott, III 
 
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Charles O. Onstott, III                  P.O. Box 2386
Undergraduate in Philosophy              Stillwater, Ok  74076
Oklahoma State University                onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu


"The most abstract system of philosophy is, in its method and purpose, 
nothing more than an extremely ingenious combination of natural sounds."
                                              -- Carl G. Jung
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