{"id":1832,"date":"2012-11-05T08:35:54","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T08:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2012-11-05T08:35:54","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T08:35:54","slug":"wittgenstein-philosophy-of-semantics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/2012\/11\/05\/wittgenstein-philosophy-of-semantics\/","title":{"rendered":"Wittgenstein (Philosophy of Semantics)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations<\/p>\n<p>Augustine describes the process of learning language and human behaviour as a child; by seeing the words and motions used in the proper place and at the proper time he learned to use them properly himself. Speech software can do something a bit like this? Or whatever. Basically soft AI can learn to manipulate speech, though it has no conscious desires outside of what has been programmed. In mimicking physical human behaviour though we might go into the uncanny valley.<br \/>\n\u201cEvery word has a meaning.\u201d p2<\/p>\n<p>Wittgenstein draws up an analogy for the use of language as mental object retrieval in which a shopkeeper is given the instruction to retrieve five red apples. The \u2018apples\u2019 are matched to a catalogue, the colour \u2018red\u2019 is compared to a colour sample and the cardinal numbers to \u2018five\u2019 are listed. For each number, the shopkeeper retrieves one apple of the chosen colour. Following this protocol, the shopkeeper fulfills the instructions and may return to a position of readiness. p3<br \/>\nThis is simplification in this example helps to draw aside some of the murkiness which \u201csurrounds the working of language\u201d (p4), and highlights the fact that in the earlier stages of language learning, that is, learning the functions of words, it is not explanation that is imparted, but training.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the practice of the use of language on party calls out the words, the other acts on [responds to] them.\u201d -p5<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNaming something is like attaching a label to a thing.\u201d -p7<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are the simple constituent parts of which reality is composed?\u201d Our conception of things (chairs, trees) is made up of parts, but what is the simplest (ie not composite) form of these parts? The elements? The atoms? We infer lots of stuff from looking at a wooden chair. The wood, and all that this implies (trees, branches, forests, saws, varnish, factories); the paint; how comfortable it may be. This complex web of background knowledge is completely natural in humans but really hard for computers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA name signifies only what is an element of reality.\u201d -p29<\/p>\n<p>And as an aside, from the Donna Harraway: \u201cMicroelectronics mediates the translations of \u2026 mind into artificial intelligence and decision procedures.\u201d -p304<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations Augustine describes the process of learning language and human behaviour as a child; by seeing the words and motions used in the proper place and at the proper time he learned to use them properly himself. Speech software can do something a bit like this? Or whatever. Basically soft AI can learn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61518,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions\/1833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}