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The people you're talking to are just incredibly intelligent compilers. We could make a compiler that takes something that resembles a for loop and changes it t

by jjk166 6y ago

The people you're talking to are just incredibly intelligent compilers. We could make a compiler that takes something that resembles a for loop and changes it to be correct, but to do so would strip a programmer of the power to make something similar to but not quite a for loop, which would generally be undesirable in a programming language. "I go store" is reasonably close to correct: you have a subject, predicate, and object and there is one meaning that fits far better than all others. However switch it up to "I store food" and now you have some ambiguity: are you saying you are storing food for later or are you saying you want to go to a grocery store or are you trying to talk about the food you purchased at the store? Again, a human being incredibly intelligent might be able to tell from context, analogous to how someone reviewing a block of code might recognize what a block of code is supposed to be doing, but in general you could expect the interpreter to raise an error, either of the form "bad syntax" or "sorry, I'm not sure what you mean." If we consider "human languages" like legalese or diplomatic language, where the goal as with programming languages is to limit ambiguity as much as possible while maintaining the speaker's ability to potentially say as many things as possible, syntax becomes very important, and typically it's preferred that the interpreter raise an error rather than try to guess at the speaker's intentions.

godelski 6y ago
The difference is in natural languages you can make tons of errors and be extremely fuzzy and it won't harm the interpretation. Compilers make you update, language doesn't (this does actually cause people to speak a language for decades and never sound native). Often times we can use grammar of another language and the words from another and still get concepts aligned (useful for language learners who will tend to use the grammar of their native language). "Pineapple store I go get" can be a perfectly understandable sentence when context is involved. You can also use direct translations of words from other languages "I put on my... uh... finger shoes." (contextual clues always help, especially in writing). Humans are "fuzzy compiling" to such a degree (and giving no errors or warnings to the writer) that it is hard to compare the two. > If we consider "human languages" like legalese or diplomatic language, where the goal as with programming languages is to limit ambiguity as much as possible while maintaining the speaker's ability to potentially say as many things as possible, syntax becomes very important, and typically it's preferred that the interpreter raise an error rather than try to guess at the speaker's intentions. Such a concept is not even possible in natural languages. Natural languages are so full of ambiguity that even native speakers from similar regions often confuse one another. Because frankly many don't realize there's: what you intend to say, what you say, and what is heard (times number of listeners). When listening to a non-native speaker we focus a lot of trying to understand intent from them. When listening to native speakers we focus a lot on what is said and what we hear (often ignoring intent). There is just so much fuzziness to natural language that it is a bit ludicrous to compare them. The fuzziness of natural language and strictness of programming languages are necessary features too.
- jjk166 6y ago
  > The difference is in natural languages you can make tons of errors and be extremely fuzzy and it won't harm the interpretation. > Natural languages are so full of ambiguity that even native speakers from similar regions often confuse one another. These two statements are contradictory. There's a difference between not caring that an error is present and being robust to error. Natural language represents the former. Yes I might not shout "Error: finger shoes not recognized" but that error nevertheless occurred, I don't actually know what they meant. I'm going to assume gloves, but if their life depended on me getting them mittens they'ed probably wish I had said I don't understand. Luckily, we live in a world where getting things wrong is typically harmless, but history is full of disastrous misunderstandings. If you are doing something important like drawing up a legal contract, your lawyer should have no problem telling you "that wording is unacceptable." which is conceptually no different from a compiler's syntax error. Natural language and programming languages are different in many ways in terms of degree. Natural languages need to be used in vastly more circumstances, they have been in use for vastly longer, and they generally represent an ad hoc development cycle involving millions of independent contributors. They thus have much more deprecated functionality and conflicting user conventions. But while different in degree, the two aren't really different in kind - every fundamental trait of one is shared by the other, which is why the fuzzy compiler for natural language will accept the terms for a programming language as a substitute without raising any error.
  - godelski 6y ago
    They aren't contradictory. You're working backwards to make humans like computers/interpreters. The fact that human interpretation 'doesn't care' is not so much a feature but a necessity. Ambiguity is inherent to natural languages, not a failure of them, nor a feature. On the other side, programming languages are strict my nature and it is a necessity. In programming we have a limited vocabulary and that limits our expressiveness, which is a feature. We don't want probabilistic outcomes for standard means. So let's look at the two parts you quotes from me and give some examples. We've conversing quite well, wouldn't you say? You understand me and I understand you? So #1 must be true, right? But have you ever played the game telephone[0]. With the general outcome of every game that must mean that #1 cannot be true, yet here we are. Like I said before, when communicating there's: what is intended, what is said, and what is heard. Usually these align pretty well. But small fuzzing adds up quite quickly. But it should also illustrate to you that what you hear (or read) isn't what the speaker (or writer) intended. Their job is to convey as best as they can to you while your job is to interpret as best as you can. Language being of this form allows us to express wildly abstract concepts, especially ones beyond our capacity to even understand. This is the usefulness of natural languages. But it is also why we created mathematical and programming languages, but why they will never be able to have the same expressiveness. You cannot program what you do not understand. But you must be able to talk about what you do not understand, if you are ever to hope to one day understand it. I'd encourage you to read both more about linguistics and compilers. If you're feeling lazy, Tom Scott has some decent linguistics videos and are aimed at STEM audiences. For more technical maybe see NativLang. For a book, checkout The Unfolding of Language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_(game) Edit: btw, you did get the meaning of finger shoes (German) even with the extreme limitations of only text based communication.

by jjk166 6y ago

godelski 6y ago

The difference is in natural languages you can make tons of errors and be extremely fuzzy and it won't harm the interpretation. Compilers make you update, language doesn't (this does actually cause people to speak a language for decades and never sound native). Often times we can use grammar of another language and the words from another and still get concepts aligned (useful for language learners who will tend to use the grammar of their native language). "Pineapple store I go get" can be a perfectly understandable sentence when context is involved. You can also use direct translations of words from other languages "I put on my... uh... finger shoes." (contextual clues always help, especially in writing). Humans are "fuzzy compiling" to such a degree (and giving no errors or warnings to the writer) that it is hard to compare the two. > If we consider "human languages" like legalese or diplomatic language, where the goal as with programming languages is to limit ambiguity as much as possible while maintaining the speaker's ability to potentially say as many things as possible, syntax becomes very important, and typically it's preferred that the interpreter raise an error rather than try to guess at the speaker's intentions. Such a concept is not even possible in natural languages. Natural languages are so full of ambiguity that even native speakers from similar regions often confuse one another. Because frankly many don't realize there's: what you intend to say, what you say, and what is heard (times number of listeners). When listening to a non-native speaker we focus a lot of trying to understand intent from them. When listening to native speakers we focus a lot on what is said and what we hear (often ignoring intent). There is just so much fuzziness to natural language that it is a bit ludicrous to compare them. The fuzziness of natural language and strictness of programming languages are necessary features too.

jjk166 6y ago
> The difference is in natural languages you can make tons of errors and be extremely fuzzy and it won't harm the interpretation. > Natural languages are so full of ambiguity that even native speakers from similar regions often confuse one another. These two statements are contradictory. There's a difference between not caring that an error is present and being robust to error. Natural language represents the former. Yes I might not shout "Error: finger shoes not recognized" but that error nevertheless occurred, I don't actually know what they meant. I'm going to assume gloves, but if their life depended on me getting them mittens they'ed probably wish I had said I don't understand. Luckily, we live in a world where getting things wrong is typically harmless, but history is full of disastrous misunderstandings. If you are doing something important like drawing up a legal contract, your lawyer should have no problem telling you "that wording is unacceptable." which is conceptually no different from a compiler's syntax error. Natural language and programming languages are different in many ways in terms of degree. Natural languages need to be used in vastly more circumstances, they have been in use for vastly longer, and they generally represent an ad hoc development cycle involving millions of independent contributors. They thus have much more deprecated functionality and conflicting user conventions. But while different in degree, the two aren't really different in kind - every fundamental trait of one is shared by the other, which is why the fuzzy compiler for natural language will accept the terms for a programming language as a substitute without raising any error.
- godelski 6y ago
  They aren't contradictory. You're working backwards to make humans like computers/interpreters. The fact that human interpretation 'doesn't care' is not so much a feature but a necessity. Ambiguity is inherent to natural languages, not a failure of them, nor a feature. On the other side, programming languages are strict my nature and it is a necessity. In programming we have a limited vocabulary and that limits our expressiveness, which is a feature. We don't want probabilistic outcomes for standard means. So let's look at the two parts you quotes from me and give some examples. We've conversing quite well, wouldn't you say? You understand me and I understand you? So #1 must be true, right? But have you ever played the game telephone[0]. With the general outcome of every game that must mean that #1 cannot be true, yet here we are. Like I said before, when communicating there's: what is intended, what is said, and what is heard. Usually these align pretty well. But small fuzzing adds up quite quickly. But it should also illustrate to you that what you hear (or read) isn't what the speaker (or writer) intended. Their job is to convey as best as they can to you while your job is to interpret as best as you can. Language being of this form allows us to express wildly abstract concepts, especially ones beyond our capacity to even understand. This is the usefulness of natural languages. But it is also why we created mathematical and programming languages, but why they will never be able to have the same expressiveness. You cannot program what you do not understand. But you must be able to talk about what you do not understand, if you are ever to hope to one day understand it. I'd encourage you to read both more about linguistics and compilers. If you're feeling lazy, Tom Scott has some decent linguistics videos and are aimed at STEM audiences. For more technical maybe see NativLang. For a book, checkout The Unfolding of Language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_(game) Edit: btw, you did get the meaning of finger shoes (German) even with the extreme limitations of only text based communication.