Phil, (01)
> The mentalese I propose is not a language for formal logic, but a
> language based on the syntax of a natural language, for representing
> concepts normally expressed in natural language. (02)
For implementing an intelligent computer system, some KR language
is necessary. The question of how that KRL is related to what goes
on in the brain is another issue. Those issues are related, and
it's interesting to study their relationships. (03)
But see below for slightly edited excerpts that I sent to a different
email list on a related topic. (04)
John
___________________________________________________________________ (05)
Email #1
> since we've agreed, I believe, that we do not have any complete
> and correct theory of any one human language (06)
Wittgenstein's later philosophy is not only consistent with that
point, it has much stronger implications: (07)
1. There is an open-ended infinity of language games that
speakers play with the grammar and vocabulary of any language. (08)
2. Every such game enriches, extends, and modifies the language.
The simplest games merely add new senses or microsenses. But
any game can also introduce new vocabulary and new grammar. (09)
Email #2
> I would like to believe there are complete and correct theories
> of some "professional languages"... (010)
No language is complete until it's dead. Physics is the hardest
of the "hard sciences", but its basic terms -- mass, energy, force,
momentum, electron, proton, gravity -- are constantly evolving. (011)
Engineers who apply physics always make approximations in their
models, and they often use mutually inconsistent theories for
different aspects of the same system. (012)
> ... at least in social and health care. (013)
That's an excellent example of the wide range of different
"language games" with different microsenses by the many
participants: surgeons, pharmacists, anesthesiologists,
general practitioners, research physicians, nurses, hospital
administrators, accountants, programmers, food preparers and
servers, building maintenance, and -- of course -- patients. (014)
They all have to communicate, but they all speak different
dialects with a considerable overlap of terms that they
use and interpret in different microsenses -- even for
a single patient for a single hospital admission. (015)
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