Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA18285 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 30 Apr 2002 23:51:48 +0100 Message-ID: <20020430224629.38010.qmail@web10101.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:46:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Trupeljak Ozren <ozren_trupeljak@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: future language To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk In-Reply-To: <000701c1f04f$a726b920$856c4518@no.shawcable.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
--- "Douglas P. Wilson" <dp-wilson@shaw.ca> wrote:
> What I was trying to describe was not the blurring of distinctions
> but
> something almost the opposite, a language capable of extreme clarity
> precisely because it lacks all the historical accidents embedded in a
> language like English. Perhaps I should have emphasized more
> strongly the
> role of library classification schemes and thesauri as an inspiration
> and
> source of data for what I have been trying to do.
Why do you believe that such a language would have more clarity than
English? Why do you believe that clarity is the overwhelming property
of such a language? Why do you think that absolute clarity in a
language is actually "good"? Personaly, I don't believe that any
language could be clear without being rather specific - and if it is
specific, than it definitively has memetic content.
There is a huge number of artificial languages in use today - and one
property that they all have in common is that they are optimised for
performance of specific tasks. Don't you think that there aren't people
working on a "perfect" computer language, one that would replace all of
these other ones? I invoke Godel's theorem on that and clearly state
that such a thing is impossible. By analogy, your perfect future
language is also impossible. What you can have, though, is a language
optimised for specific way of thinking/creating content. Look at the
universal symbolism of math...:)
> On re-reading my own message I note that my attempt to describe or to
> define
> this wasn't very good -- not as clear as I had hoped. "Designed by"
> is an
> interesting restatement, but I don't think it is quite right either.
> What
> distinguishes German from Malay is, on this theory, is not so much
> design as
> content -- it is the different memetic contents of the languages that
> makes
> them different languages.
IMO, what you are refering to different memetic contents are in
actuality the different morphemes that these languages use (arguably
the most basic memes of them all), and rules for combining those
morphemes into sentences ("operating system" or "reflection of the
Universal Grammar" or some such..). We do see three major such systems
of combining morphemes in languages all across the world - wich would
imply that to a certain extent, all three have equal "fitness" value.
This might also imply that there *isn't* a *one* universal system (of
combining morphemes) that is just best at everything.
When we look at morphemes themselves, they seem to be almost completely
arbitray - although we do see that some combinations of sounds are more
statisticaly prevalent then others. Again, a point against "universal
original language".
>> This statement reads like it was written by a person who sees the
> current
> assortment of natural languages as rather a bad thing, someone who
> may have
> hoped we as a species would adopt a single language, thereby
> rendering
> translators obsolete.
True. This is what I perceived, although I am aware that most people
are far more complex than just that...:)
>
> I have been such a person all my life, but I am beginning to suspect
> there
> is something wrong with that point of view. On the memetic-content
> theory,
> each natural language may contain (or consist of) a large amount of
> memetic
> content, something that is, or should be, or will be valuable. Had
> we all
> adopted a single language a few generations ago, European Union
> meetings
> would be less horrific, but the content encoded or embedded in the
> other
> languages would have been lost.
Yes, precisely my point. If there is *a language* that is so superior
to all the others in whatever it is that languages can be superior in,
than there is a rather strong probabilty that we would all be speaking
it today. :)
(Which is, of course, a sentence said in English, not my native tongue,
to a number of people to whom English is also not a native tongue...sad
sad irony..:)
>
> We may someday learn to extract the content from languages,
> preserving and
> perhaps making use of it, at which time we may discover that we have
> in
> fact been speaking a single universal language all along and just
> didn't
> notice because of all the memetic baggage in the way. (I know that
> sounds
> preposterous, but I think the basic idea is only mildly insane and
> may
> contain some small kernel of truth).
>
> dpw
Without language there is precious little content left. For example, we
have something that (IMO) corresponds to the role of language, and
exists in all the cultures across the Earth - music. Now music *can*
transfer some information content, and quite a bit of emotional
content, it has it's "grammar" and syntax, it has it's morphemes even,
but exactly how useful is it in transmitting information (content)?
There is a good reason why we all *don't* speak in whistles. :)
What you see as "baggage", I see as an essential part of what language
*is*. It is a feature, not a bug...:)
All IMO, of course.
=====
There are very few men - and they are exceptions - who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment.
Carl von Clausewitz
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness
http://health.yahoo.com
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 01 2002 - 00:08:53 BST