Re: Universal grammar

"Rob" == Rob Freeman <groups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>> ... If the string appear as random to the algorithm that tries
>> to determine these structures, there will be no compression.

Rob> Good, I wanted to establish that. This whole business of
Rob> logical description, a logical basis for anything, is related
Rob> to the problem of compressibility of strings. And it has been
Rob> proven some (most?) strings are incompressible.

The proof is a pretty straight-forward exercise for a beginner or
intermediate level student of logic: Proof by contradiction. (See my
previous post for a sketch of how to prove it. I developed this idea
myself at around 13 -- well before I learnt proof by contradiction at
school.)



Rob> Incompressible strings can be our mathematical model for
Rob> human language, and as a model they can be a more compact
Rob> representation for information than rules.

More compact: yes. More appropriate? Probably not. Ease of
processing? Bad. Ease of manipulation? Usually poor.


--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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