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When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human
languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that
this is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases,
everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly
speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.
Even more weirdly, people have invented more precise ways of saying
things (e.g., technical terms with exact and unambiguous meanings), and
yet humans find it *harder* to communicate this way, not easier. You
would have thought being able to say what you mean precisely would be
easier, but it clearly isn't. Again, you would have thought
understanding a sentence with only a single possible meaning would be
way easier. But it isn't.
This leaves me wondering... how the **** does the human mind actually
work anyway?!
If you try to program a computer, precise language is much easier to
handle than ambiguous stuff. Which makes complete sense. But humans,
apparently, function the opposite way round. Go figure!
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human
> languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that
> this is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases,
> everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly
> speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.
Communication isn't all verbal.
> This leaves me wondering... how the **** does the human mind actually
> work anyway?!
You're not the first...
> If you try to program a computer, precise language is much easier to
> handle than ambiguous stuff. Which makes complete sense. But humans,
> apparently, function the opposite way round. Go figure!
That doesn't compute. I don't have a program called "figure" in my
brain, so I don't know how to run it.
--
Boy making shadow pictures with his hand: "Look, Daddy, Digital Imaging."
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawaz org<<<<<<
anl
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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human
>> languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that
>> this is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases,
>> everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly
>> speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.
>
> Communication isn't all verbal.
Indeed. Especially when it's written in a book.
(*I* may have managed to read three volumes of Douglas Adams without
realising it was ment to be funny, but most people don't seem to make
that mistake.)
>> This leaves me wondering... how the **** does the human mind actually
>> work anyway?!
>
> You're not the first...
Heh. I'm sure I'm also not the first to suspect that "if brains were
simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand them".
> Boy making shadow pictures with his hand: "Look, Daddy, Digital Imaging."
Add the area_light keyword for analogue imagine.
Oh, wait...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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And lo On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:56:14 -0000, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>
did spake thusly:
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human
>>> languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that
>>> this is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases,
>>> everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly
>>> speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.
>> Communication isn't all verbal.
>
> Indeed. Especially when it's written in a book.
>
> (*I* may have managed to read three volumes of Douglas Adams without
> realising it was ment to be funny, but most people don't seem to make
> that mistake.)
Pick up a copy of PeopleWatching by Desmond Norris. It's a dense tome to
get into, but interesting none the less. Less dense and more fun is
Watching the English by Kate Fox, but obviously more anglocentric.
>>> This leaves me wondering... how the **** does the human mind actually
>>> work anyway?!
>> You're not the first...
>
> Heh. I'm sure I'm also not the first to suspect that "if brains were
> simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand them".
Indeed. An analogy I've heard as to researching what goes on in the brain
is that you've one person monitoring an enormous bank of dials and another
person in a pitch-black room with all the controlling machinery
occasionally prodding something and shouting back "What did that do?"
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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>> Heh. I'm sure I'm also not the first to suspect that "if brains were
>> simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand them".
>
> Indeed. An analogy I've heard as to researching what goes on in the
> brain is that you've one person monitoring an enormous bank of dials and
> another person in a pitch-black room with all the controlling machinery
> occasionally prodding something and shouting back "What did that do?"
Somebody suggested that operating a particle accelerator is like trying
to figure out how a mechanical clock works by smashing two clocks
together and measuring the weight of the shrapnel...
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> When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human
> languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that this
> is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases,
> everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly
> speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.
There's this thing called *context* that helps humans a huge amount, it
allows you to understand things even though you haven't 100% understood each
word. But occasionally when unexpected things are said, especially when not
too clearly, you need to ask for the packet to be sent again :-)
"How's the new server room Andy?"
"Is great thanks, but we got two cows in there at the moment".
A compiler would reply: "Error: COws in server room."
A person would reply: "Repeat previous statement please."
> Even more weirdly, people have invented more precise ways of saying things
> (e.g., technical terms with exact and unambiguous meanings), and yet
> humans find it *harder* to communicate this way, not easier. You would
> have thought being able to say what you mean precisely would be easier,
> but it clearly isn't.
I wish my compiler would say "WARNING: Hey, I guess you meant variableName
instead of variableNmae, as no other declared variables are remotely like
variableNmae", rather than "ERROR: Unknown variable variableNmae".
Writing, knowing that you need to be 100% accurate, is much harder than if
you know a few mitsakes wont Matter :-)
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scott wrote:
>> When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human
>> languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that
>> this is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases,
>> everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly
>> speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.
>
> There's this thing called *context* that helps humans a huge amount, it
> allows you to understand things even though you haven't 100% understood
> each word.
Hmm. And this "context" may not actually be in the words spoken. They
could be in the tone of the person's voice. (E.g., somebody sends you an
email saying "hey, this is a joke!" Are they amused or angry? Good luck
figuring that out...) It could be their body language. It could by
something you've discussed previously. Or it might be related to that
"culture" concept that I don't understand.
Hmm... Good luck with getting a machine to pass a Turing test! ;-)
>> You would have thought being able to say what you mean precisely would
>> be easier, but it clearly isn't.
>
> I wish my compiler would say "WARNING: Hey, I guess you meant
> variableName instead of variableNmae, as no other declared variables are
> remotely like variableNmae", rather than "ERROR: Unknown variable
> variableNmae".
Or better yet,
- "Unify: Cannot construct infinite type Customer = Map ID Customer".
- "Not in scope: Unqualified identifier FOo."
- "Error: Inferred type is less general than expected."
and so on.
> Writing, knowing that you need to be 100% accurate, is much harder than
> if you know a few mitsakes wont Matter :-)
Er, yeah.
Forces you to think clearly about what you *mean* though. For example,
how many words are there in a typical English person's vocabulary?
Seems like a perfectly well-defined question. Until you sit down and
thing about it:
- What counts as a "word"? (Are different inflextions counted as
"different" words? Are propper nouns included? How about
"hexachlorophine"? Is that a word?)
- What counts as "vocabulary"? (Words you've heard of? Words that you
know the meaning of? Words that you actually use in typical conversation?)
- What counts as a "typical English person"? (Does |NERV|Invisible
count? I think not! Who else doesn't count? Stephen Fry?)
Suddenly you see that this question could have a wild variety of
different yet "valid" answers. So much for a simple question...
PS. I'd still really like to know how large a typical person's
vocabulary is. Is it 1,000 words? Or 1,000,000 words?
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Invisible wrote:
> - What counts as a "word"? (Are different inflextions counted as
> "different" words? Are propper nouns included? How about
> "hexachlorophine"? Is that a word?)
No, but according to Wikipedia Hexachlorophene is.
--
~Mike
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> Hmm. And this "context" may not actually be in the words spoken. They
> could be in the tone of the person's voice. (E.g., somebody sends you an
> email saying "hey, this is a joke!" Are they amused or angry? Good luck
> figuring that out...) It could be their body language. It could by
> something you've discussed previously. Or it might be related to that
> "culture" concept that I don't understand.
Or on location.
> PS. I'd still really like to know how large a typical person's
> vocabulary is. Is it 1,000 words? Or 1,000,000 words?
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/howmany.htm
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>> - What counts as a "word"? (Are different inflextions counted as
>> "different" words? Are propper nouns included? How about
>> "hexachlorophine"? Is that a word?)
>
> No, but according to Wikipedia Hexachlorophene is.
LOL! The other night I asked my mum to think up words that rhyme with
"gleam". Hexachlorophene wasn't even on her list! ;-)
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