On Mar 24, 7:40 pm, John Doty <j...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> But you are just trying to define the problem away: language, as
> understood by linguists, is what engages the human "language instinct",
> and that's a powerful mental "muscle". Weaker definitions only suit a
> weak language, one that cannot as effectively employ human mental power.
I am not "trying to define the problem away". I am pointing out that
you are trying to smuggle your conclusions in by way of definition
instead of making a coherent argument for them.
The idea of a human language instinct is itself not entirely
uncontroversial ...
.... neither, indeed, is the idea that the precise substantial content
of that instinct is a settled point. Chomsky, for example, finds that
the language instinct results in languages that have both a surface
structure and a deep structure. Not all linguists agree with that ...
for some, language is a self-reproducing system that *is* a coherent
system, with a coherent structure, and different aspects of that
structure may evolve at different rates, but at any one point in time
it forms a single concrete and largely coherent whole.
However, the controversy of those points is nothing compared to the
gist of your argument, because while they are not settled points, on
the other hand there are serious students of human language who will
present a persuasive argument in support.
The heroic leap is the jump that finds in the focus of linguists on
their subject of study, human languages, the basis for arguing that
not just *some* computer languages, and not just *most* computer
languages, but *each and every* computer languages should be
exclusively designed to engage human language instincts in preference
over any other type of reasoning.
The audacity of that leap is quite stunning.
In order to make the case that *all* computer languages should be
tailored to verbal reasoning to the detriment of their support of
other types of reasoning, it has to be shown that verbal reasoning
will provide superior results to all other types of reasoning in all
problem areas that any designer of any computer program may encounter.
Since you are not making the argument that, "there should be a
computer language that ..." does such and so. You are making the
argument that, "there should never be a computer language that does
not ..." do such and so.
So I understand that temptation to argue, "any computer language
worthy of the name language will be designed in this way, because I
declare that only computer languages designed this way are worthy of
the name language", but its still trying to smuggle your conclusion in
via assumptions that only you are willing to grant.
And in particular, while there are linguists who will argue that
language is the only way of thinking that is worthy of the name, in
addition to being loquacious animals, humans are also tool making
animals. And in addition to an instinct of language, there is an
instinct of workmanship.
And while it may appeal to the loquaciousness of humankind to design
computer languages that are present simulcras of human language, in
which humans express to the machine what they desire to occur, it also
appeals to our tool-using instinct to design computer languages that
allow us to build the tools that work as we wish them to work.
I am not convinced that a dead simulcra of living human language is
the one and only thing that a computer programming language should
every be allowed to be. I think that being a tool for building tools
is also one worthwhile model for computer program design languages.
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