pitfalls of complexity

[Rob Freeman]

Hello Esa. Great to see you encouraging debate on this very important
issue of complexity in linguistics.

I have a different view of linguistic complexity. You know it already,
but I have found new expressions for it. Perhaps you would comment.

I believe homonymy and idiosyncrasy do admit of the same explanation,
but I don't think the explanation is redundancy. I think we see
homonymy and idiosyncrasy because they are both forms of randomness.

For years we've been running around wondering why language is so full
of randomness. Randomness has been synonymous with inefficiency in our
minds. We have completely failed to grasp that randomness actually
gives us great descriptive power.

And why is randomness so important? Because paradoxically it allows us
to find more patterns (if patterns are regular then rules limit how
many we can find.)

Note this also gives a search for patterns a fundamental role in
language: analogy etc. Something I think we have always agreed on.

Another nice thing about randomness as an explanation for homonymy,
idiosyncrasy, and most other problems which vex us in language, is
that it short circuits the debate on complexity. The idea is that if a
system exhibits random patterns it is already maximally complex.
Stephen Wolfram calls this "computational irreducibility." He has gone
into it quite extensively. Though not for language. His shock claim is
that the vast majority of systems are already maximally, and thus
equally, complex (in the sense of being universal computers.)

If that is true and systems exhibiting random patterns, in particular
language, are computationally irreducible, then it may not be a
question of comparing the complexity of languages and deciding if they
become more or less complex over time. The important question may be
do they exhibit random patterns. Because if they do they may already
be maximally complex.

-Rob

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Esa Itkonen<eitkonen at utu.fi> wrote:
> Dear FUNKNETters: Nowadays complexity seems to be on almost everybody's agenda. But it is not a simple notion, as you can see if you just care to read the last addition to the list of "available as full texts" on my homepage (click below).
> Esa
>
> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen
>