Re: I wonder what the "Science" is in this Newsgroup

From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 09/04/04 

Date: 4 Sep 2004 00:35:07 -0700

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<413854AE.3262@worldnet.att.net>...
 
> Please learn the difference between the English words "parable" and
> "parabola."

Thank you for correcting my mistake. The German word Parabel means
both the curve - circle ellipse parabola, and the literary parabel,
for example Franz Kafka's parabel Vor dem Gesetz, which I knew
almost entirely by heart as a teenager, and which proved to be
the best preparation for my career as a scientist outside academe.

When I prepare a massage at home I check the words and eliminate
as many bugs as I can make out, but when I write a spontaneous
reply (as I do now) I sometimes make a mess of words. For example
I expanded a French word into English when I called Standford
"a highly renommated university." The correct word would be renown
or better reputed. (Pietro / pierre levy: Stanford certainly *is*
a highly reputed university, a leading university worldwide, at
least in scientific terms, some of their political agenda may
be a different question). Not being a native speaker of English,
however, I try to be clear and make my messages redundant enough
so that everybody interested in a given topic may follow my ideas.
I use my limited English capabilites for doing online reasearch,
while others use their perfect English for chatting (to whom it
concerns, I surely don't mean you, Peter T. Daniels).

Jacques Guy: my definition of language contradicts your opinion
that machines may one day be able of talking by themselves.
Bacteria talk, trees talk, machines won't talk. Sophisticated
computers of a near or far future, quantum computers, that is,
may one day be able to translate bacteria language into human
language (as much simpler machines can transform whale songs
into audible melodies for the human ear), and such a machine
that could help us understand bacteria language would be a great
achievement, since bacteria rule the world. They built up and
maintain the biosphere. Plants and animals are conglomerates
of bacteria, and we humans are their agents on a mission: conquer
other planets, where the bacteria may spread and create new
biospheres ...

Now comes a difficult part of my reasoning. Working theses of
the sort "bodies are machines, machines are bodies" or "the human
brain is just a computer" or "humans can combine words, machines
can combine words, hence there is no basic difference between
human language and machine language" are okay as working theses.
Scientists working in these fields must immerse _completely_
into such ideas, in order to bring their disciplines further.
However, kookyness is sneaking into Big Science when working
theses and sucessful paradigms are confounded with truth and
generalized and pronounced as dogmata. For example the most
successful mechanical paradigm was generalized and turned into
a dogma: the cosmos was seen as a machine, and animals were
just automata, unable of feeling, let alone reasoning and
communicating. Nowadays the human brain is explained to be
just a computer. The AI lab at the MIT must go on in that way,
for such extreme assumptions are needed for bringing AI research
any further, but nobody should accept such statements as the truth:
the brain is a computer, and at the same time much more than
a computer.

My English is getting tired and wishes to spend a lazy Saturday,
perhaps reading a book on the beach. Well then, I let go.

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

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