LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.18 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=======================================================================

 L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

 http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php

 Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net

 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html

 Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html

 Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]

 Administration: lowlands.list at gmail.com or sassisch at yahoo.com


 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
 sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.


 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

=======================================================================

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 18 January 2009 - Volume 03
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
===========================================


From: Andrys Onsman <Andrys.Onsman at calt.monash.edu.au>
Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.16 (01) [E]

To: Mark Dreyer
Subject: LL-L "Language programming"
From: Andrys Onsman

Hi Mark

> I *insist* that this is so. That is why we make them, to do what we don't
> have the time or leisure to do ourselves. Conceding all your objections
> in
> the following passage, I don't disagree, you are only telling me the
> brain
> is a less perfect instrument than the computer: In certain limited
> respects
> (at present), true.

My tentative assertion that the brain is not like a computer is based on its
idiosyncracy; its holistic inclusivity; its neurological inconsistency and
its ability to generate abstracted principles from multiple sources. It
makes a computer a very much less than perfect brain, rather than the other
way around. Regardless of what we may read in the popular media, no part of
the brain works in isolation, nor is it likely that any part of the brain is
irrevocable assigned to  a specific task. As you can tell, the analogy is a
bugbear!

When I did my first PhD in non-literal language processing in 1988
(unbelievable - 20 years ago!!) I, like everyone who worked in our lab (and
elsewhere) was convinced that Collins and Quillian were correct in their
idea that language is stored and accessed logically in discernible parts of
the brain. Developments over the next twenty years (and especially in the
last three) in monitoring and measuring neurological activity have shown
conclusively that my entire thesis was completely wrong.

> Andrys, you asked,
>
> "Wouldn't recognition be an aspect of a sense of number? And vice versa?"
>
> I don't think so. Bearing in mind your point about the holistic
> properties
> of the brain, recognition is an Aboelian operation involving sets of
> 'like'
> in a set of 'one' among many, whereas counting is a collation of 'unlike'
> sets of 'one' from 'one' to 'enth' among many. In the former, number is
> not
> important. Sort through a box of documents for a certain letter from your
> Great-aunt Jemima. You can go through the whole box & find the letter or
> not, & I hope you do, without noting the number of documents.
> Alternatively
> you can count the number of documents without looking for, or even
> noticing,
> any specific one. Poor Great-aunt Jemima.

Isn't that more related to task rather than concept? Finding something
specific is not essentially the same as counting instances. I'd imagine that
motivation has some kind of filtering (or focusing) agency in the task at
hand. The brain has the capacity to record and process information at the
same time, which would suggest some kind of filtering capacity. Go the
puddle-ducks, I say!

> And aren't these things always related to the observer?
>
> Mark:
>
> Yes, but how?
>
I'd start by looking at motivation and purpose, but perhaps I assign them
too great an agency. Immediacy and incentives are also observer-specific -
along with all the usual suspects we have in nature and nurture.

Cheers
Andrys

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20090118/e0aa01f5/attachment.htm>