Re: Fw: Intro to natural language processing
Lest we get engulfed in "metaphysical mush" let us keep in mind that as
empirical psychology became a science it disassociated itself from both
philosophy and theology. While we exchange emails, thousands of
professionals in clinical psychology and scores of related professions are
making a living by analyzing natural language in their patients, clients
and students. How do they so so? They have this notion of "norms" in mind
even if they don't have actual tables of norms before them. They also know
that a sample of natural language can be held up against the measure of a
table of norms, and both table and sample are as scientific as an amoeba
in a petri dish. If the table is not available, they know it can be
generated.
The clinical psychologist takes it scenario-by-scenario. "Given time,
place and person parameters ____, _____ and ____, what are the examples of
'appropriate' or normative natural language?" Imagine we have most of the
time, place and person scenarios listed for people in our culture; and we
have natural language norms for those scenarios. Clinical psychologists
and all of those related professionals act as if they have such scientific
information. The entire DSM taxonomy used by clinicians the world over
would fall apart if those norms were invalid. What would we find in the
tables of norms if they were on hand? Strings of letters and words.
As long as I emit letter and word strings which fit into those tables of
norms, what can a clinician say except that my natural language is normal?
Does it matter if I am a naughty robot like Bender of the Futurama
television series and have no "comprehension" of what I am saying in the
metaphysical sense? No. "Bite my shiny metal ass" seems to be normative
for a variety of time, place and person scenarios in the year 3,000 AD.
Z
<http://www.geocities.com/partyofcitizens>
Citizens for the "inherent dignity and worth of the human person"
Quoted words from UDHR/CAT
On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, John F. Sowa wrote:
> John and Jean-Luc,
>
> I completely agree with your criticisms
> of Rob F's comments and proposal. John's
> "grain of salt" comment is sufficient.
>
> But your comments are worth some comments:
>
> JLD> Not formally defining our purposes may be
> > an enhancement to our "creativity" in our research
> > quests UNLESS we fall prey to "scholastic thinking"
> > which will stymies us into barren tracks.
>
> Please do *not* use the adjective "scholastic"
> in a derogatory sense. The work on logic and
> the semantics of natural language (i.e., Latin)
> was outstanding, and 20th-century linguists,
> philosophers, and logicians would have profited
> enormously from studying it.
>
> I frequently cite William of Ockham's Summa Logicae
> because it was the last of the great Summae, which
> incorporated and systematized over 200 years of
> research and debate during the 12th to 14th centuries,
> which built on earlier work by Aristotle and his
> followers and commentators in the Hellenistic and
> Arabic world. (Citations below).
>
> And by the way, they most definitely had a purpose
> for that analysis: the clarification and correction
> of the reasoning processes used in philosophy and
> especially theology. In today's business world,
> the goal of developing a great system of logic for
> the purpose of doing philosophy or theology would
> not get much funding, but in those days, theology
> was where the money (or at least subsistence wages)
> could be found. The Church was the DARPA of the
> middle ages.
>
> By the way, I like the one-line review of the PhD
> dissertation by Karol Woytyla (AKA Pope John Paul II):
> "scholastic steel meets phenomenological mush".
>
> JLD> The assumption looks like there must be some "essence"
> > semantics in some platonistic realm and that if we were
> > smart enough, wise enough ot lucky enough to "discover"
> > it then all "problems" with semantics, NLP, AI and what
> > have you will be solved or at least within easy reach.
>
> The scholastics adopted Aristotle's categories, but
> they did try to minimize the differences between Plato
> and Aristotle by considering A to be a "correction"
> to P, and their theology to be a "correction" to A.
> I believe that they had a better designed upper ontology
> than Cyc or WordNet (but that's not saying much).
>
> JLD> I am fairly sure this is the WRONG approach, and
> > if we knowingly or unknowingly lean toward that,
> > there will be no significant progress.
>
> I wouldn't say it's completely wrong, but I do say that
> it's only one piece of the puzzle. I recommend Ockham's
> Theory of Propositions (Part II of his Summa) as an
> example of how a model-theoretic analysis of a natural
> language can clarify a large number of issues. (And I
> use the term "model-theoretic" advisedly, because the
> main differences between Ockham and Tarski are that
> (1) Tarski used an algebraic notation, but (2) Ockham
> had a much broader coverage -- certainly much bigger
> than Montague's 37-word "fragment" of English.)
>
> Following is my view of how model-theoretic semantics
> fits into the puzzle:
>
> 1. Natural languages are capable of being used with
> as much precision as any artificial language, and
> the usage in Euclid, Ockham, or any textbook on
> mathematics demonstrates that point.
>
> 2. Model-theoretic semantics is only applicable when
> a single consistent formal ontology has been
> adopted and used unequivocally. That is exactly
> what Euclid, Ockham, and most math textbooks do.
>
> 3. The main difficulties in understanding NL are
> caused by the enormous complexities of the world,
> the enormous number of possible points of view on
> any aspect of the world, and the enormous flexibility
> of NLs to adapt to any and every point of view.
>
> 4. The artificial languages of logic and most programming
> languages can only be used *after* a single consistent
> ontology has been adopted. The great strength of NLs
> is that they can be used both in the early stages of
> developing an ontology and in the later stages of using
> the ontology (as well as every intermediate mixed stage).
>
> 5. The greatest problem of NL semantics is trying to find
> a way of preserving the flexibility of NLs at the early
> stages that also allows for the use of NLs in a precise
> way during the later stages.
>
> I agree with John B's comments, and I just wanted to applaud
> his concluding sentences:
>
> JB> If you want to seriously get into NLP, then starting
> > points have to involve *all* of the approaches mentioned.
> > No one of those by itself is in a position to deliver.
>
> The Aristotle-Ockham-Tarski-Montague-Kamp style of model-
> theoretic semantics is an important piece of the puzzle,
> but we still don't know how many boxes of pieces haven't
> yet been found.
>
> John Sowa
> __________________________________________________________
>
> For a quick overview of Ockham's work and how it relates
> to his contemporaries and predecessors, I recommend the
> article by Paul Spade in the Stanford encyclopedia:
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/
>
> For more, see Spade's download page (including his 410-page
> book on medieval logic and translations of various sources):
>
> http://pvspade.com/Logic/noframes/download.html
> Mediaeval Downloads
>
> Following are three books with translations of all of Part I,
> all of Part II, and some selections from Part III of Ockham's
> Summa Logicae:
>
> _Ockham's Theory of Terms_, Part I of Summa Logicae translated
> by M. J. Loux, St. Augustine's Press, South Bend, IN.
>
> For selections from Part I, translated by P. V. Spade, see
>
> http://pvspade.com/Logic/docs/ockham.pdf
>
> _Ockham's Theory of Propositions_, Part II of Summa Logicae
> translated by A. J. Freddoso & H. Schuurman, St. Augustine's
> Press, South Bend, IN.
>
> Ockham, William of, _Philosophical Writings_, ed. and translated
> by P. Boehner, revised by S. F. Brown, Hackett Publishing Co.,
> Indianapolis. (Latin and English selections from Summa Logicae
> and other works.)
>