Active Thinking Topic 82 - Language or Thought - Which is the Slave?
12 & 14 May 2024
Recommended Video: Tom Scott (7 Nov 2023) "Does the language you speak change how you think? No. Mostly". tomscott.com @ https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=CmZdGo6b5yA [5 minutes]
Talking Points:
1. Is thought possible without language? What is the evidence?
2. Is language possible without thought? What is the evidence?
3. What, actually, is thought?
4. Since Chat GPT and other LLMs (Large Language Models) became publicly available there has been fevered speculation that they will soon master AGI (artificial general intelligence) and even become dangerous competitors for humans. How realistic is this speculation?
6. People are often judged socially and professionally using the equation that being very fluent with language equates with having high intelligence. Think of examples which might confirm or challenge this belief.
7. How does writing a computer program differ from, say, writing a novel?
8. How do the rules of syntax typically used to describe a natural language like English differ from the rules of syntax used in most computer programs?
9. When children and adults learn their first, then sometimes other languages, how do their brains actually master the standard vocabularies and patterns of those languages?
10. Doing early doctoral research in the 1990s, I read that in the European Middle Ages there was a widely held belief that human brains were like what we would now call dumb computer terminals. That is, human thoughts, language and actions were entirely controlled by a 'central master computer', God. [Australia's ex Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has just written a book claiming something similar about himself]. How widespread is this belief nowadays? How seriously is the belief challenged by recent research into the brain and language?
Extra Reading & Viewing
Dr. Ev Fedorenko (3 Oct 2020) "The language system in the human mind and brain". OnNeuro channel @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZCODWQ67TM [Technical seminar presentation]
Dr. Ev Fedorenko (11 Oct 2019) "Language and the brain". Canguro English @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8YM7gy0OmU [Non technical discussion focused on second language learning]
Ev Fedorenko (26 Jan 2023) MONTREAL
[Keynote #3] - The language system in the human brain: Parallels and differences with large language models (virtual presentation) - Ev Fedorenko (MIT McGovern Institute, MA, USA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9AiYuCwdE [Technical seminar presentation]
Tom Scott (7 Nov 2023) "Does the language you speak change how you think? No. Mostly". tomscott.com @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmZdGo6b5yA [5 minutes]
Thor May (2015) "The Probable Language Brain [2013, extended 2015]". archived at https://www.academia.edu/2563032/The_Probable_Language_Brain_2013_extended_2015 _ [Thor, note: The discussion in this paper is somewhat overtaken by recent neurolinguistic research by people such as Fedorenko. However it does reflect my rejection of the Chomskyan generative linguistics models which underlay doctoral research I did in the 1980s and 1990s. These arguments are still being fought over in many research centres & lecture halls around the world]. [Note 2, quote: "Let us suppose that you are a research linguist, tormented by some doubts and questions about the state of your profession, and not constrained by having to repeat a catechism of "known truths" to Linguistics 101 students, and not worried about employment tenure. How would you actually go about tackling "the central problem of linguistics", namely how we acquire and maintain knowledge of the probability of systemic relationships in a language?"]
Thor May (2018) "Emergent Systems - An Overview", archived at https://www.academia.edu/36660988/Emergent_Systems_An_Overview
Also a mandarin Chinese translation, "涌现系统 概述 " @ https://www.academia.edu/45478833/%E6%B6%8C%E7%8E%B0%E7%B3%BB%E7%BB%9F_%E6%A6%82%E8%BF%B0_Emergent_Systems_Overview [Note: I am not competent to evaluate the translation]
[Thor, comment: This short paper is included since both language and thought are immensely complicated pyramids of emergent systems. We need to understand what that means ..]
[Quote: "An emergent system is one where a) the final system has properties and effects which exceed the properties and effects of its component parts, and b) whose final properties and effects cannot be predicted from merely examining the component parts. The prediction issue becomes critical in dynamic systems where human judgements have to be made but the true emergent form of the system to come is not known. This paper is just a point list of issues to introduce some ideas about emergent systems for further discussion"]
Steven Pinker (3 May 2024) "How Language Influences The Brain". @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GpKIagzm2c
Ev Fedorenko (19 Dec 2023) "Generative AI Foundations". Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQjn9P7c8pM [10 minutes]
Armando Solar-Lezama "(19 Dec 2023) How AI will program itself." Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6-7mD5TH1s
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Language or Thought - Which is the Slave? (c) Thor May 2024