PM,
Like your exposition of your work which we discussed a while ago, your
statement below doesn’t deal with the problem to be solved – in this case:
what is the “language” of language (and AGI)? [It’s a controversial but
stimulating assumption that there is such a thing as a common “language” – or,
to use another metaphor, “currency”.]
I’m suggesting that the use of sign language – the use of hand
“graphics”/”figures” - is one clue to that lingua franca.
Your definition of “understanding” is essentially a non-definition. It doesn’t
explain what understanding *entails* – merely points out one v. narrow
*application* of understanding, i.e. to language. Obviously, if you think about
it, we also have to “understand” what is going on in a visual scene, or indeed
understand sensory images of all kinds, including paintings, cartoons, maps,
blueprints, x-rays, music and many, many other things. Understanding applies
to not merely registering, but successfully classifying EVERY form of input to
a real world agent’s brain, not just one.
What I’m proposing is that there may be a common form of “language” to all or
nearly all these forms of process - a “language” wh. is actually radically
different from the purely symbolic kind to which most AGI-ers cling very
unimaginatively (in all senses).
From: Piaget Modeler
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 4:15 PM
To: AGI
Subject: RE: [agi] Step One towards the real lingua franca of brain/AGI
I feel like I'm repeating myself:
#7 - Understanding is learning a new language to the point of fluency.
(When the words in the new language activate your language independent
concepts,
and you have created sufficient behaviors so that you can effortlessly
generate
expressions in the new language).
Even when the new language is a signed language.
~PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [agi] Step One towards the real lingua franca of brain/AGI
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 12:16:06 +0100
Language by mouth and by hand
April 3rd, 2013 in Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Humans favor speech as the primary means of linguistic communication. Spoken
languages are so common many think language and speech are one and the same.
But the prevalence of sign languages suggests otherwise. Not only can Deaf
communities generate language using manual gestures, but their languages share
some of their design and neural mechanisms with spoken languages.
New research by Northeastern University's Prof. Iris Berent further
underscores the flexibility of human language and its robustness across both
spoken and signed channels of communication.
In a paper published in PLOS ONE, Prof. Berent and her team show that English
speakers can learn to rapidly recognize key structures of American Sign
Language (ASL), despite no previous familiarity with this language.
Like spoken languages, signed languages construct words from meaningless
syllables (akin to can-dy in English) and distinguish them from morphemes
(meaningful units, similar to the English can-s). The research group examined
whether non-signers might be able to discover this structure.
In a series of experiments, Prof. Berent and her team (Amanda Dupuis, a
graduate student at Northeastern University, and Dr. Diane Brentari of the
University of Chicago) asked English speakers to identify syllables in novel
ASL signs. Results showed that these non-signing adults quickly learned to
identify the number of signed syllables (one vs. two), and they could even
distinguish syllables from morphemes.
Remarkably, however, people did not act as indiscriminate general-purpose
learners. While they could easily learn to discern the structure of ASL signs,
they were unable to do so when presented with signs that were equally complex,
but violated the structure of ASL (as well as any known human language).
The results suggest that participants extended their linguistic knowledge from
spoken language to sign language. This finding is significant because it shows
that linguistic principles are abstract, and they can apply to both speech and
sign. Nonetheless, Dr. Berent explains, language is also constrained, as not
all linguistic principles are equally learnable. "Our present results do not
establish the origin of these limitations- whether they only result from
people's past experience with English, or from more general design properties
of the language system. But regardless of source, language transcends speech,
as people can extend their linguistic knowledge to a new modality."
Provided by Northeastern University
"Language by mouth and by hand." April 3rd, 2013.
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-language-mouth.html
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