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

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.
No, your argument[1] is still your opinion.

[1]: '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.'

>> I find that unlikely.
>
> Give me evidence for your claim.
Do me a favor and quote what I'm claiming next time?

'Impossible' is a very specific word. It totally rules out the very
possibility of doing someting. A computer can easily generate vocabulary
(a simple word-building algorithm with a mapping between a
dictionary/encyclopedia of concepts), so that's half of it.

And didn't Turing prove that all you needed to do to solve any problem
was have a few basic things? (I haven't read this.) Surely one could
phrase a requirement to create a grammar as a problem, which is then
solvable by the creation of one.

>> Again, the problem here is that we don't know how to be able to tell a
>> computer how to do it.
>
> Whatever, you only prove my point.
Two hundred years ago, we did not know how to make a computer. By your
logic, it is therefore impossible to make a computer.

>> 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?
As has been mentioned, you speak a language. I understand that you have
a language gene. That certainly helps. Program a computer to have a
means of communication and in the absense of one, it'll make one 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?
>
> 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. After all, there are so many musical
> traditions in the world that in our ears don't sound musical at all,
> so who
> are we to judge whether something is music or not? Art is not only in the
> eye (or ear) of the beholder.
Below I mention parts of the universe and imply that they're art, and
imply that the universe created them. One might dispute this and say
it's random evolution through chance, but what is *bang* oops ...
*bang-bang* double-oops hmm.... i like that.... *bang* *bang-bang*
*bink*.. oooh! *bang* *bang-bang* *bink* *bang* *bang-bang* *bink* but
random evolution through chance? The tune/rhythm that's best able to
stick in the person's mind survives.

Now, you may argue that a new piece of music can be created, but the
universe does not create a new foo. (or, Later pieces of artwork are
created using earlier ones as a guideline (but still through
trial-and-error, unless by a genius who gets it right first time).) The
universe lacks the ability to remember and re-use. One of computers's
most common uses these days is to remember and re-use already existing
stuff...

>>  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.
>
>
> Yes, because a computer cannot come up with something it hasn't been told
> about. A human being can, and it's something we don't know how it
> happens.
> We may find out how it happens in the future, but we're currently not
> even
> at the edge of the beginning of an understanding of our own creative
> processes, so it won't happen any time soon.
>
>
> Yes you need [to program (or in some other way have) inspiration].
> It's the essence of creation!
(Again---quote properly. You don't have to strip everything you've said
away. '"You needn't." - Yes you need. It's the essence of creation' is
unhelpful. Quoting is there to provide context!)

No, the essence of creation is making something new that wasn't there
before. Art doesn't need to be inspired to be great. Well, maybe it
does, but that requires another definition of inspiration like an
'internal source; a combination of memories, experiences and thoughts',
which is very easy to program (no, I haven't done that, and I don't know
enough of any programming language to do it, but I could outline the idea).

>>  You program obedience (unnecessary I guess) and the idea of
>> what a language is, or what music is, or what art is.
>
> But that's not enough. The computer can only at best put together already
> known parts in a random manner. Creation is something else.
A person can only at best put together already known parts in a random
manner. The greatest piano piece in the world probably has less
components to it than the result of a cat walking over a (piano) keyboard.

Have you defined creation to make it impossible for a non-sentient and
non-biological being to create?

>>  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?
>
> 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?
Of course it may be art! As to the artist... probably whoever found it
and decided it was worth showing to other people would be... Either that
or it'd go down as 'Artist Unknown'. If a computer did it, though, *it
would have done it with some sort of intent*, either because someone had
programmed it to act on desires, and one desire it had was to be a
famous artist, or show how it saw the world,[1] or because I clicked a
button which caused it to launch the subroutine responsible for
generating a picture (with no human input).

[1]: A primitive way of implementing this is to give it a lot of
desires---many more then it would be able to implement in the ten (or
whatever) years it functions for---and have it do them to fill in time
when it's 'bored' or something. To decide which ones it would do, you'd
give/teach it a database of information about the societal worths of
each desire. To cause it to learn that, I guess you'd give it a highly
ranked desire: learn (*and therefore* rank) about desires (and another
highly ranked desire: try and accomplish each desire based on their
ranking). (For the now, you'd also have to give it more information than
you might a human, but that's simply because humans have desires and
learning built into them for historical reasons; to use a floppy with a
Mac, you must first by a floppy drive, whereas most x86 PCs have them
built in.)

>> What exactly is a philosophical lang?
>
>
> A language working with a small amount of roots and which builds words
> with
> them in a taxonomic manner, with the added thing that it must be easily
> parseable.
Why the title 'philosophical'?

>>  (And again, 'cannot'? What
>> evidence have you got?)
>
> I was replying to Andrew who claimed there was a program out there which
> can create conlangs. I don't have to prove anything I say.
So you can bullshit and say things are impossible with no source? And
Andrew didn't claim that; he misunderstood what someone else had said.

>> Neither of those have to do with creation; merely with comprehension.
>
> Of course. But if they cannot even do that, how could they possibly
> create?
I'm not sure I see the cause and affect. The universe, I would say,
can't comprehend. It can't even know! Yet take a look at yourself; take
a look at the Australian bush; take a look at the clouds of Jupiter or
the sky at night.

>> And human translation is often dangerous; why should a computer be any
>> better than that which programs it?
>
> You're proving my point.
Not that I can see. Not unless I don't understand your point.

>>  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.
>
> Prove it.
Opinions don't need to be proved. To prove it, I'd need knowledge and
equipment I can only dream of.

>> 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.
This is not proving your point. These human beings I speak of have heard
music before. They have been provided with instruments we have used to
create music and learnt its general use. They simply remain illiterate
in musical notation.

>> Nor is denying undisproven things,
>
> I didn't. I know there's no such program existing today, and you don't
> argue by referring to the future, as the future is by essence
> uncertain. My
> arguments only have to do with the present and our current knowledge.
You said things were impossible, but with no way to even hint at that
other than lack of present ability. Is something only possible if it
exists? Then the universe must be all the more amazing as it morphs to
encompass even more concepts and objects!

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

There's no such thing as an infinite loop. Eventually, the computer will break.
-- John D. Sullivan