Re: Real Conlangs Here, Made-to-Order!

On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 06:21:29PM +0200, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à Tristan McLeay :
>
> >Apparently only because we don't know how to tell a computer how to be
> >creative and don't have the power to let it be creative.
>
> Because we don't understand ourselves how creativity works. But whatever
> the reason, my argument still holds.
Actually, we do know how creativity works. It takes things in the
enviroment and puts them together in new and unusual ways. The
appropriate value functions - judging what's good and what's bad - is
the hard part. Of course, they're aren't always the easiest for humans
to do, either.

> >I find that unlikely.
>
> Give me evidence for your claim.
The fact that he claims that he finds that unlikely is sufficent
evidence for most purposes that he, in fact, finds that unlikely.

> >But the human input is necessary for a human to create something, too.
>
> Not always. We can discover how to create by ourselves, without human
> input. Or else, how could I have learned how to conlang while I had never
> followed a conlanging course?
You knew of languages, and it's not exactly an original jump to take
something and try to make something similar.

> >Do you imagine that a human who'd never come in contact with music would
> >be able to create something that we'd consider music?
>
> Yes. I truly think somebody who would have never come in contact with music
> could have by himself the ideas of putting sounds together, and that if it
> pleased him it would be music.
And if it pleases the computer, then what the computer makes is music.
So computers can, in fact, create music. Q.E.D.

People who grow up without language don't develop languages on their
own. People who grow up without music probably don't develop anything
that could fairly be described as music, as opposed to random noise.

> But that's not enough. The computer can only at best put together already
> known parts in a random manner. Creation is something else.
Humans can really do better then putting together known parts with
slight variations? Most people's first conlang, outside of a conlanging
community, is derivative of their native language. How many humans would
actually add sounds to a conlang outside a language they're familiar
with, unless they have some linguistic training?

> The same as between the result of three open pots of paint falling on the
> floor by accident and the result of a person painting the floor with the
> same three pots of paint. You may like the first result better than the
> second, but does it make it art? And if so, who's the artist?
That's a straw man. Let's say that a mechanical hand moved the paint
over the floor, and when it was where the controller intended it, it
dropped the paint. Why does the nature of the work depend on whether
there was a human running the system or a computer?

> But they can be taught it, much better than any computer can currently
> achieve it. The difference in potential is big.
Because we have huge dedicated speech processing centers applying more
computing power to problem then is normally available, and that have
been trained over a million years of evolution. Given that I have a VAX
(from 1983) in my living room twice the size of my refridgerator that
didn't have a hundredth the power of the computer sitting beside me, and
that humans have only had that level of power available for speech to
text research for twenty years, I don't think it's time to count the
computer out.

> >I know people who can play beautiful music yet can't read, much less
> >write, a note (in the sense of one of those circular things, generally
> >with a vertical line coming out of it, placed on a bunch of horizontal
> >lines)!
>
> And here again you're proving my point. Human beings don't need to be
> taught anything to be able to create.
You really think they weren't taught? At the very least, they spent many
hours attempting imitations of what they here, and probably still spend
many hours doing imitations of other's (somewhat) original work.

--
David Starner - dvdeug@email.ro
Ic sæt me on anum leahtrice, ða com heo and bát me!

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