On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Dr. Matthias Heger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In my opinion language itself is no real domain for intelligence at all. > Language is just a communication protocol. You have patterns of a certain > domain in your brain you have to translate your internal pattern > representation to a sequence of words in order to communicate your patterns > to another person.
I've seen this kind of comment on this list and elsewhere before.. and it's typically just accepted without question. Personally, I think it's pretty far from the truth. Language does not exist to get the ideas in my head into yours. Language exists so I can get you to do what I want. The baby cries not to tell you that it is unhappy with the world, but to get you to do something about it. As such, squeaking out noises is just the same as moving a limb. The machinery that controls it is not trying to translate mentalese into english so that it can be transformed back into mentalese in the recipient's head with the greatest accuracy. Sure, sometimes that'd be nice, but most the time the goal is simply to make you think want I want you to think so you'll do my bidding. That's why having a theory of mind is all tied up with language. If I don't know what you're thinking then I can't know what your intentions are and if I don't know what your intentions are then I don't know if I need to change them so you have intentions that serve my goals. Even if we had direct mentalese transfer between two AGIs (and in the neuromancer universe, between humans) we'd still need all that interesting stuff that we study language for.. because if I brain dump my current goals to you then it in no way implies that you're going to alter your goals to match mine. Trent ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
