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> using a finite set of symbols to represent an infinite number of communicable meanings This always seemed wildly implausible to me. A very large number of co

> using a finite set of symbols to represent an infinite number of communicable meanings This always seemed wildly implausible to me. A very large number of communicable meanings, sure, but infinite?

Majromax 2y ago
> This always seemed wildly implausible to me. A very large number of communicable meanings, sure, but infinite? This is "trivial" in the boring kind of way. With just digits, we can communicate an infinite set of distinct numbers simply by counting.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  We can't really communicate an infinite amount of numbers. People just can't read or remember too many digits.
  - Affric 2y ago
    We can. Scientific notation with 1 significant figure can be meaningful because we can use it to figure out order relations. It’s an infinite language.
conradev 2y ago
David Deutsch claims in “The Beginning of Infinity” this is a property called universality, and that we have it. A short excerpt: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HDyePg6oySYQ9hY4i/david-deutsch-on-universal-explainers-and-ai https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HDyePg6oySYQ9hY4i/david-deut... The whole book is worth reading, though, as it lays it out in more detail.
gyomu 2y ago
Seems trivially demonstrable because you can just chain things forever? Mary ran after the dog and the dog was brown and a cat came along and…
- MourYother 2y ago
  > you can just chain thing forever I think you're going to find out that no, you can't, and this impossibility is going to trivially demonstrate itself.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - bornfreddy 2y ago
    Recite 99 bottles of beer on the wall, but start from 1 and change so the number increases? Stop when there are no remaining numbers or when you reach infinity, whichever comes first.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      So, is this a proposal to test how long it takes for you to lose your count?
      - nick__m 2y ago
        They are talking as if language was some platonic construct like a Turing machine with an infinite tape and you are talking about the concrete reality where there are no such things as an infinite tape. Both viewpoints are useful, they can prove general properties that hold for arbitrary long sequence of words and you put a practical bound on that length.
        marcosdumay 2y ago
        The question is if human are capable of infinitely extensible language. That's clearly false. It's not about some platonic mathematical simplification. Humans patently do not fit the Chomsky criterium for intelligence. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's physically impossible for any real being to fit it.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
Since English has several possible sentences that are infinite in length, made up of only one word even https://medium.com/luminasticity/grammatical-infinities-what-they-are-32ed7e37cc05 https://medium.com/luminasticity/grammatical-infinities-what... I have to agree with all the this is trivial comments.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Whatever "finite set of symbols" humans use to communicate is not the finite set of symbols that form letters or words. Communication isn't discrete in practical sense, it's continuous - any symbol can take not just different meanings, but different shades and superposition of meanings, based on the differences in way it's articulated (tone, style of writing - including colors), context in which it shows, and context of the whole situation. The only way you can represent this symbolically is in the trivial sense like you can represent everything, because you can use few symbols to build up natural numbers, and then you can use those numbers to approximate everything else. But I doubt it's what Chomsky had in mind.

> using a finite set of symbols to represent an infinite number of communicable meanings This always seemed wildly implausible to me. A very large number of communicable meanings, sure, but infinite?

Majromax 2y ago

> This always seemed wildly implausible to me. A very large number of communicable meanings, sure, but infinite? This is "trivial" in the boring kind of way. With just digits, we can communicate an infinite set of distinct numbers simply by counting.

marcosdumay 2y ago
We can't really communicate an infinite amount of numbers. People just can't read or remember too many digits.
- Affric 2y ago
  We can. Scientific notation with 1 significant figure can be meaningful because we can use it to figure out order relations. It’s an infinite language.

conradev 2y ago

David Deutsch claims in “The Beginning of Infinity” this is a property called universality, and that we have it. A short excerpt: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HDyePg6oySYQ9hY4i/david-deutsch-on-universal-explainers-and-ai https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HDyePg6oySYQ9hY4i/david-deut... The whole book is worth reading, though, as it lays it out in more detail.

gyomu 2y ago

Seems trivially demonstrable because you can just chain things forever? Mary ran after the dog and the dog was brown and a cat came along and…

MourYother 2y ago
> you can just chain thing forever I think you're going to find out that no, you can't, and this impossibility is going to trivially demonstrate itself.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bornfreddy 2y ago
  Recite 99 bottles of beer on the wall, but start from 1 and change so the number increases? Stop when there are no remaining numbers or when you reach infinity, whichever comes first.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    So, is this a proposal to test how long it takes for you to lose your count?
    - nick__m 2y ago
      They are talking as if language was some platonic construct like a Turing machine with an infinite tape and you are talking about the concrete reality where there are no such things as an infinite tape. Both viewpoints are useful, they can prove general properties that hold for arbitrary long sequence of words and you put a practical bound on that length.
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        The question is if human are capable of infinitely extensible language. That's clearly false. It's not about some platonic mathematical simplification. Humans patently do not fit the Chomsky criterium for intelligence. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's physically impossible for any real being to fit it.
- snapcaster 2y ago

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

Since English has several possible sentences that are infinite in length, made up of only one word even https://medium.com/luminasticity/grammatical-infinities-what-they-are-32ed7e37cc05 https://medium.com/luminasticity/grammatical-infinities-what... I have to agree with all the this is trivial comments.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

Whatever "finite set of symbols" humans use to communicate is not the finite set of symbols that form letters or words. Communication isn't discrete in practical sense, it's continuous - any symbol can take not just different meanings, but different shades and superposition of meanings, based on the differences in way it's articulated (tone, style of writing - including colors), context in which it shows, and context of the whole situation. The only way you can represent this symbolically is in the trivial sense like you can represent everything, because you can use few symbols to build up natural numbers, and then you can use those numbers to approximate everything else. But I doubt it's what Chomsky had in mind.