Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural Languages

[Adrian Walker <adriandwalker@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John, Rich and Azamat --

I have been lurking interestedly in the wings of your discussion, and I hope the following observations may help your project.  

(You may be relieved to hear that, for once, I'm not pushing Executable English /  Internet Business Logic (:-))

 I think John McCarthy once said words to the effect that what's needed for the really big problems in AI  (such as general computational NL understanding), is to stop and think for a very long time.

It's very tempting to hope that something in the philosophical or AI literature, combined with the data structure du jour, plus the current fashion for AI-style ontologies can somehow be glued together to 'solve' general free NL understanding.  

However, the evidence points the other way: Watson being beaten by Congressman Holt at Jeopardy [1] is only the latest in a painfully long list.  (Jeopardy competence is much less than full NL understanding anyway)

So, my money is on someone unexpected, like Einstein in his patent office days, with lots of time to think, and not overly wedded to current paradigms.  Not rushing to implement.  As they used to say at IBM -- Think.

Just my 2 cents.  Hope this helps.

                                   -- Adrian


[1] http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/8433--rep-holt-beats-watson-the-computer-at-jeopardy

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 2:45 PM, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Azamat and Rich,

Theory and practice are both important.  I don't want to minimize
the value of a good theory, but I also want to emphasize that people
survived for thousands of years without the guidance of formal theories
of self interest.

AA

> I'd say a bit more: no top ontology, no fundamental solution for a problem.

RC

> We need a simpler, more fundamental way to model interest than
> has so far been discussed - a kind of Newton's laws for motivation.

I am very suspicious of that word 'fundamental'.  My uncle Al never
studied Maxwell's equations, but he had a good business in repairing
TVs.  If I had a problem with the TV, I'd call uncle Al rather than
a theoretical physicist.

What is better?  A successful repair by Al?  Or a "fundamental" attempt
by a physicist who never saw the insides of a TV set?

As examples of language use, I often cite the following sentences
by a child named Laura shortly before her third birthday:

   Here’s a seat. It must be mine if it’s a little one.
   I want this doll because she’s big.
   When I was a little girl I could go "geek-geek" like that.
   But now I can go "this is a chair."

See http://webster.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf

Laura correctly used a wider range of modal language than Montague had
formalized, and I doubt that Montague grammar would help her in any way.

RC

> We need a simpler, more fundamental way to model interest than

> has so far been discussed...
> Perhaps we should consider Pavlov's ways of simplifying the situation...

There's been over a century of research since Pavlov's dogs, and even
dog's are vastly more complex than stimulus-response models can explain.
For a summary of cognitive models with references to other work, see

   http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/ca4cs.pdf

As I keep saying, starting with a simplified theory is guaranteed
to produce toy solutions to toy problems.  Montague grammar is an
example of a brilliant, but useless toy.  It is *not* fundamental.

If you start with a big problem, you might need to simplify it,
but it's impossible know in advance what aspects to discard,
simplify, or generalize.

John

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