computational linguistics

[bianca]

has writing given us another dimension on speaking, just like computers do on our reality? I mean, historically?

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Originally Posted by bianca

Ok, Jamshid, my friend, let me put it this way:
has writing given us another dimension on speaking, just like computers do on our reality? I mean, historically?

Yes certainly. There is always some mutual infleuence. There are some studies in this regard if you need to know more. I personally believe all human technologies (seen in a broad sense:whether computers, script, art, living in a different culture...) extend our perception and create new dimensions. Computers with their virtual reality, second life, email, shopping on line.... space research have created or will create new dimensions. They either extend or replace some old patterns-Language is always part of this evolution. Some people even speak of disadvantages of script. Finally this a very difficult issue and I am usually careful not to make any black and white statements. Sorry I can't help more.
Jamshid

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by bianca

Self-awareness is about consciousness.

OK then, when humans utter a sentence are they aware, consciously, of the rules of the grammar? No. But the same doesn't hold true for computers; they are computationaly aware. Right?

Originally Posted by bianca

]Or, let me put it this way: can computers achieve semantic thought or free will?

Yes and no. Again, it depends on how narrow we define free will. If, for example, a computer produces a 'wrong' answer, an answer that it worked out according to an algorythm, the permutations of which the controller hadn't yet accounted for, then, yes, a computer can be viewed as having free will: it wasn't controlled.

Note that, a computer is no more human than a human is a computer. They will, of course, share certain computational similaries, which is expected given that humans program computers.

What are your thoughts?

[bianca]

nobody can really define consciousness, it's not in the sense of being self-conscious about smth. It's more about man's access to the abstract concept of his reality. If computers can achieve consciousness, then they must also achieve subjectivity.

"free will" in terms of making own decisions as to what is right and wrong.

I guess this is hard to anticipate. For this to happen, we have to be able to define self-awareness, which hasn't been done yet. Science tries so stubbornly to emulate nature, though.

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by bianca

I guess this is hard to anticipate. For this to happen, we have to be able to define self-awareness, which hasn't been done yet. Science tries so stubbornly to emulate nature, though.

Maybe the problem is that self-awareness is too narrowly defined. The basic assumption here is that thinking or self-awareness has just the one meaning, that applied to animate (sentient) beings, and yet here we are applying it to inanimate objects, computers. The term is a problem, you're right. Either We need to redefine the term (by taking in to account what it means for a computer to think, to be self-aware) or we need to let the humans win out on this one.

[CHOMAT]

Man,only,has the ability to look back on her/his own action, man is certainly not aware of his making utterance , as it was said before, but she/he can be so if she/he wants to that's metalanguage and Descartes's basic tenet of the ego. Parrot can speak... and yet.
Alain
Nevertheless, self-consciouness , I guess can't be defined without unconsciouness which influence on the former is of course significant :Computer and unconsciouness ? Will Microsoft employ N F F C N ( New Freud For Computer Nevrosis )?
Alain

[bianca]

Let me see here:

self-awareness is when one's awareness of oneself becomes one's object of criticism. Right?

Sounds to me more like:

To be examined critically, the object (awareness) must then be encountered outside of the subject, right? Or worse: if a subject is aware of an object, then the subject is also aware of being aware of that object.

Lakan concluded that the unconscious is another sign-system produced by language, that it is articulated like a language which in turn is produced by culture. According to this, the unconscious should be examined within the three- dimensional culture-language-Self "system". Makes me think of babies' unconscious: they haven't been exposed to culture so much, their language is not articulated (articulation comes with maturity in language), so their unconscious is incoherent, inarticulate. The more coherent the language, the more articulated the unconscious, and the more coherent the Cartesian Self (according to Descartes we have a more or less stable and coherent Self).

Now, as opposed to this theory, I remember inferring from somewhere that for a subject to develop a coherent self-awareness, her condition may be symptomatic of emotional distress. So, emotionally distressed people are closer to developing a critical sense of their self-awareness / consciousness... How coherent is then these people's Self? These two theories are mutually excluding.
I am lost...

[CHOMAT]

Originally Posted by bianca

Let me see here:

self-awareness is when one's awareness of oneself becomes one's object of criticism. Right?

Sounds to me more like:

To be examined critically, the object (awareness) must then be encountered outside of the subject, right? Or worse: if a subject is aware of an object, then the subject is also aware of being aware of that object.

Lakan concluded that the unconscious is another sign-system produced by language, that it is articulated like a language which in turn is produced by culture. According to this, the unconscious should be examined within the three- dimensional culture-language-Self "system". Makes me think of babies' unconscious: they haven't been exposed to culture so much, their language is not articulated (articulation comes with maturity in language), so their unconscious is incoherent, inarticulate. The more coherent the language, the more articulated the unconscious, and the more coherent the Cartesian Self (according to Descartes we have a more or less stable and coherent Self).

Now, as opposed to this theory, I remember inferring from somewhere that for a subject to develop a coherent self-awareness, her condition may be symptomatic of emotional distress. So, emotionally distressed people are closer to developing a critical sense of their self-awareness / consciousness... How coherent is then these people's Self? These two theories are mutually excluding.
I am lost...

The crux of the problem is the equation : the more coherent the lang.. the more articulated the unconscious is questionable ( The unconscious articulated in our language becomes part of conscious or of pre-conscious just as some darkness visible). As far as I have understood Lacan,The unconscious is articulated as a language but is not our language. The second theory which reminds me of Melanie Klein's proposition can be understood as: depressions act as steps in one's psychological route . They are opportunities for us to re-live former traumas (mother's parting...) and re-create our self out of those experiences. I guess we are not all equally armed in this process . It depends on how well we had been prepared to face those primal traumas.(the relation to the Mother).. But first of all, the ideal self concept is akin to the ideal language. It's a IT we are bound to search without reaching it. It's a game of subtle equilibrum, our self is like the acrobat on the brink of unbalance.
Moreover, We are drifting over other streams. Where are those gentle computers of ours ?
Alain

[bianca]

very clever observations, Alain.

[CHOMAT]

Bianca,
I should enlarge on the part of language . The unconscious is structured as a language but a language of its own with drives. Our structured language might bridge the gap between the unconscious to the pre-conscious. Those verbal representations (free associations) carry the reminiscence of unconscious forces. Those obscure drives can be somehow funnelled thanks to this work of verbal representation. Freud also claimed that the unconscious was first of all the place of drives . A place which follows a coded language ( transferts...).Remember that sexual drives were prior to language in performance (N. Chomsky?) and that therefore,there is long-life a-synchrony between sexual development and language development.
Alain