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I still don’t understand. What’s funny about it and what’s DNA got to do with human language sentences (the original quote)? Chomsky’s grammars are used in com

I still don’t understand. What’s funny about it and what’s DNA got to do with human language sentences (the original quote)? Chomsky’s grammars are used in compilers and compiler theory. Even though programming languages have got nothing to do with human languages. Certainly nothing to do with the “probability of a sentence” that he was talking about. The application of something like that doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about what Chomsky is talking about, namely human language.

dekhn 4y ago
Funny you mention that- after working with probabilistic grammars on DNA for a while, I asked my advisor if the same idea could be applied to compilers, IE, if you left out a semicolon, could you use large number of example programs to train a probabilistic compiler to look forward enough to recognize the missing semicolon and continue compiling? They looked at me like I was an idiot (well, I was) and then said very slowly.... "yes, I suppose you could do that... it would be very slow and you'd need a lot of examples and I'm not sure I'd want a nondeterministic parser". My entire point above is that Chomsky's contributions to language modelling are the very thing he's complaining about. But what he's really saying is "humans are special, language has a structure that is embedded in human minds, and no probabilistic model can recapitulate that or show any sign of self-awareness/consciousness/understanding". I do not think that humans are "special" or that "understanding" is what he thinks it is.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  I get it now. What’s funny is your vulgar interpretation of “language”. Which is another pet-peeve of his: people who use commonsensical, intuitive words like “language” and “person” to draw unfounded scientific and philosophical paralells between things which can be compared with metaphors, like human languages and… DNA I guess.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    You think DNA isn't a language? That seems... restrictive. To me, the term language was genericized from "how people talk to each other" to "sequences of tokens which convey information in semi-standardized forms between information-processing entities". DNA uses the metaphors of language- the central dogma of biology includes "transcription" (copying of DNA to RNA) and "translation" (converting a sequence of RNA to protein). Personally I think those terms stretch the metaphor a bit.
  - CRConrad 4y ago
    Another thing that's funny is your usage of “vulgar”.
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      Okay.

dekhn 4y ago

Funny you mention that- after working with probabilistic grammars on DNA for a while, I asked my advisor if the same idea could be applied to compilers, IE, if you left out a semicolon, could you use large number of example programs to train a probabilistic compiler to look forward enough to recognize the missing semicolon and continue compiling? They looked at me like I was an idiot (well, I was) and then said very slowly.... "yes, I suppose you could do that... it would be very slow and you'd need a lot of examples and I'm not sure I'd want a nondeterministic parser". My entire point above is that Chomsky's contributions to language modelling are the very thing he's complaining about. But what he's really saying is "humans are special, language has a structure that is embedded in human minds, and no probabilistic model can recapitulate that or show any sign of self-awareness/consciousness/understanding". I do not think that humans are "special" or that "understanding" is what he thinks it is.

avgcorrection 4y ago
I get it now. What’s funny is your vulgar interpretation of “language”. Which is another pet-peeve of his: people who use commonsensical, intuitive words like “language” and “person” to draw unfounded scientific and philosophical paralells between things which can be compared with metaphors, like human languages and… DNA I guess.
- dekhn 4y ago
  You think DNA isn't a language? That seems... restrictive. To me, the term language was genericized from "how people talk to each other" to "sequences of tokens which convey information in semi-standardized forms between information-processing entities". DNA uses the metaphors of language- the central dogma of biology includes "transcription" (copying of DNA to RNA) and "translation" (converting a sequence of RNA to protein). Personally I think those terms stretch the metaphor a bit.
- CRConrad 4y ago
  Another thing that's funny is your usage of “vulgar”.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    Okay.