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

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> False. There are computer programs which help people to make music,
> but the
> human input is vital. Computers don't have ideas. And without ideas you
> can't create anything.
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.

>>  so I will not be
>> surprised if a computer program makes grammar and vocabulary
>> of a language.
>
> Impossible to do.
I find that unlikely.

> Languages are such complex things that no computer is able to fully
> analyse
> them, even less create some from scratch.
Again, the problem here is that we don't know how to be able to tell a
computer how to do it.

> The best
> there is currently is vocabulary generators, but they make only possible
> forms according to rules that human people have to give, and the human
> input is always necessary.
But the human input is necessary for a human to create something, too.
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? They'd need to be
taught! (or at the very least, influenced). Just because we don't have
to be told absolutely everything because we come with a built-in
grounding doesn't mean that a computer is less capable.

>> I could not distinguish such a computer-generated
>> language from a language made by a human artist.
>
> How do you know, since there's no such program around. They are
> impossible
> to create. Tell me, how do you program inspiration?
You needn't. You program obedience (unnecessary I guess) and the idea of
what a language is, or what music is, or what art is. Admittedly most
people would reject it as art, but if something is sufficiently advanced
that it can create something that's indistinguishable from art (barring
knowledge of its source), what difference does it make? (Personally, I
don't know if I'd call the output art, at least, not until it's been
appreciated by others (i.e. the thing itself isn't art, but the feelings
it evokes bestows that title upon it) but the program which created it
surely is.)

>> The only exception are philosophical languages.
>
> On the contrary. Because of their specific structure, philosophical
> languages are much easier to handle for computers. They cannot create any
> either, but they can easily parse them and analyse them.
What exactly is a philosophical lang? (And again, 'cannot'? What
evidence have you got?)

> That's true for any language. And since non-philosophical languages have
> words which often are actually descriptive, but in metaphorical ways,
> they
> are even more difficult to handle by computers than philosophical
> languages. Look at the problems of automatic translation (still a dream)
> and speech to text programs.
Neither of those have to do with creation; merely with comprehension.
And human translation is often dangerous; why should a computer be any
better than that which programs it? Furthermore, I contend that
speech-to-text has orders of magnitude less to do with the ability to
create (or even comprehend) than sight has to do with creating a
painting or hearing has to do with composing music. Illiterates are
perfectly able to comprehend spoken English, yet they can't perform
text-to-speech (which computers can), much less speech-to-text. Someone
who's only ever heard one dialect spoken, or a few dialects spoken,
often has difficulty understanding speakers of quite divergent dialects.
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)!

>> Would it be desirable to run the language-making program round
>> the clock and have it post its new languages on the web at a
>> rate of, say, one language per hour?
>
> First make such a language, then we'll talk. But talking about ghosts
> of a
> uncertain future is certainly not a way to argue.
Nor is denying undisproven things, or throwing around red herrings. (Do
other languages have as imaginative a name as 'red herring' for red
herrings?)

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

"Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle:
You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve."

- Alan Perlis

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