[OFF-TOPIC] Language, logic, and such

[Fred]

On Monday 25 September 2006 15:15, Ben Scott uttered thusly:
> On 9/25/06, Fred <puissante at lrc.puissante.com> wrote:
> > While I find it laudable that someone has gone through the trouble of
> > creating an unambiguous language, we humans by nature are creatures of
> > ambiguity. If such a language were to be actually used by those other
> > than us geekoids, ambiguities would be deliberately introduced!
>
>   I raised that same question when the topic was announced.  The
> answer I was given was, in effect: There is a difference between an
> ambiguous subject and an ambiguous language.  The language can be
> precise, even if the people using it, and/or the topic of
> conversation, are not.

I think people will still inject ambiguities in the language constructs 
themselves *even if* the language is precise. In normal conversation, many 
things are said between individuals in incomplete sentences, and thus 
grammatical ambiguity is introjected. 

>   There's probably an analogy with the precise nature of computer
> programming languages and the fact that we still manage to screw that
> up with depressing regularity.

Yes. The old GIGO principle applies here. Expressions will ultimately be only 
as precise as the *thoughts* behind them. The dangers with a precise 
language, I think, is that precision will be assumed where inherent 
ambiguity actually is. That can be extremely dangerous for all the obvious 
reasons.

> > Personally, I don't think that language defines how we think ...
>
>   It's an old and fundamental question.  I do believe language can
> influence our thinking heavily.  I don't claim to know how much "we"
> are capable of escaping that influence, or how much it varies from
> person to person.

Influence, yes. but hinder? I may not have to expend as much thought if a 
word is handy to describe something I am thinking of. But in most -- 
non-trivial -- cases, I can never find the right word right off, and have to 
get creative.

>   Web searches for "Sapir Whorf", "linguistic relativity",
> "Psycholinguistics", and such find a wealth of knowledge and opinion
> on the subject.
>
>   Perhaps you should come to the SLUG meeting.  ;-)

I'm sure there's a wealth of information on the web on the subject. And one 
of these days I will actually have *time* to sift through it all! I have a 
subscription to Nature, and every week I get a new edition packed with 
*TONS* of very interesting science, and I barely get a chance to scratch the 
surface. ARRRRRRGH! When I do get a chance to read an article or two, I am 
simply blown away with new discoveries about such basic things as DNA, the 
Cosmos, etc. Did you know that it is possible you've inherited *RNA* 
sequences from your grandparents? Or that you have epigenetics that evolves 
during your lifetime, controlling the expression of your genetics? Or that 
the meaning of "gene" is not well-defined, and that you have genes 
overlapping genes, genes within genes, and other weirdness going on? But I 
digress.

I truly need more time. More *lifetimes* in particular. 

Back to our "off-topic" subject, there is the whole area of semiotics to 
consider, as well as memetics, especially thought contagions. 

And then there are some things I am working on myself, though it's on the 
back-burner for now -- something that tries to make sense of all of these 
disparate systems of thought. 

Much of what I've read to date on the area of linguistics I'm kinda 
disappointed with, because it's usually too narrow in the approaches. But 
then to handle it in what I consider a real sense would probably require 
PhDs in multiple fields of discipline.

> > So, an open question I would put forward among us "geek" types is
> > whether or not we tend to think more visually than the normal
> > population? Or just how does the "normal" population think anyway?
>
>   I find I lack the vocabulary, and perhaps quality of introspection,
> needed to describe my own thought processes very well.  I also don't
> find much of the terminology of the world I know seems to apply, which
> means I don't know where to begin building a vocabulary.  How does a
> deaf man describe color to a blind man?
> -- Ben

Keep in mind that much of our language was created at a time and in a world 
that no longer exists. So, to push your color analogy a bit, there are 
colors that exist today that didn't when the words describing color were 
created. And the old colors have largely faded away. We try then to use the 
old color terms to describe the new colors, and it's a mess at best.

I find the GUI on our computer systems especially problematic, because it 
largely relies on inadequate metaphors. For example, a "folder" on a 
computer can contain many, many "files" and "folders" to an "infinite" 
regress, whereas folders in real life rarely contain other folders and just 
a handful of *papers*. Folders containing *files* is especially backwards, 
for in real life a "file" is a collection of folders and papers! No wonder 
the average person is confused!!!! And in our smug arrogance, we call 
them "lusers". The real truth is that they have a hard time with the very 
metaphors *we* created. They simply do not map cleanly to what they can 
understand. We'd probably be much better off with throwing out the silly 
metaphors and starting afresh with something completely different. But alas, 
we are now hindered with the QWERTY problem. Sigh.

And to rant even more, there are very good reasons that command-line 
interfaces are far more powerful than GUI interfaces, but are even harder 
for the average joe to understand.

-Fred