Transcendence
Beauty
Excellence
Truth
Agency
Sovereignty
Reciprocity
Markets
Category: Epistemology and Method
-
Status Update: Grammars
From Curt: I feel the need to apologize to followers for spending so long on grammar. I started in mid August when I realized I had not found a vocabulary for assisting people in understanding inflationary and deflationary vocabulary and grammars. So I set out on my usual task of creating series (Spectrums) and operational definitions, and produced a (very) large table (spreadsheet) illustrating each of them. It’s one of those things that will take forever to reach the degree of completeness that I feel is necessary, but it’s certainly complete enough to illustrate the meaning of ‘universal grammar’ and the spectrums of deflationary, natural, and inflationary grammars. For the sake of brevity, given that the term ‘grammar’ refers to rules, I am going to refer to (conflate) the combination of a deflationary vocabulary that serves a particular deflationary grammar, and that grammar and syntax into the single term ‘grammar’ or perhaps ‘dimensional grammar’. Otherwise I’ll have to write “deflated and inflated vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of decidability” over and over again until my fingers bleed. So the english language contains N number of dimensional grammars. Some languages can express the same N number of grammars, and some languages cannot. Now, this effort took me, what? Seven weeks? But the consequence of that ‘deep dive’ (the frustration I feel during such deep dives never seems to end – i’m lucky they don’t push me into a depression) is that I have produced the vocabulary and narrative that I was looking for – and others need. So, now I am ‘unstuck’ (at least for now). -
STATUS UPDATE: GRAMMARS From Curt: I feel the need to apologize to followers for
STATUS UPDATE: GRAMMARS
From Curt:
I feel the need to apologize to followers for spending so long on grammar. I started in mid August when I realized I had not found a vocabulary for assisting people in understanding inflationary and deflationary vocabulary and grammars.
So I set out on my usual task of creating series (Spectrums) and operational definitions, and produced a (very) large table (spreadsheet) illustrating each of them. It’s one of those things that will take forever to reach the degree of completeness that I feel is necessary, but it’s certainly complete enough to illustrate the meaning of ‘universal grammar’ and the spectrums of deflationary, natural, and inflationary grammars.
For the sake of brevity, given that the term ‘grammar’ refers to rules, I am going to refer to (conflate) the combination of a deflationary vocabulary that serves a particular deflationary grammar, and that grammar and syntax into the single term ‘grammar’ or perhaps ‘dimensional grammar’. Otherwise I’ll have to write “deflated and inflated vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of decidability” over and over again until my fingers bleed. So the english language contains N number of dimensional grammars. Some languages can express the same N number of grammars, and some languages cannot.
Now, this effort took me, what? Seven weeks? But the consequence of that ‘deep dive’ (the frustration I feel during such deep dives never seems to end – i’m lucky they don’t push me into a depression) is that I have produced the vocabulary and narrative that I was looking for – and others need.
So, now I am ‘unstuck’ (at least for now).
Source date (UTC): 2017-10-08 19:17:00 UTC
-
Status Update: Grammars
From Curt: I feel the need to apologize to followers for spending so long on grammar. I started in mid August when I realized I had not found a vocabulary for assisting people in understanding inflationary and deflationary vocabulary and grammars. So I set out on my usual task of creating series (Spectrums) and operational definitions, and produced a (very) large table (spreadsheet) illustrating each of them. It’s one of those things that will take forever to reach the degree of completeness that I feel is necessary, but it’s certainly complete enough to illustrate the meaning of ‘universal grammar’ and the spectrums of deflationary, natural, and inflationary grammars. For the sake of brevity, given that the term ‘grammar’ refers to rules, I am going to refer to (conflate) the combination of a deflationary vocabulary that serves a particular deflationary grammar, and that grammar and syntax into the single term ‘grammar’ or perhaps ‘dimensional grammar’. Otherwise I’ll have to write “deflated and inflated vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of decidability” over and over again until my fingers bleed. So the english language contains N number of dimensional grammars. Some languages can express the same N number of grammars, and some languages cannot. Now, this effort took me, what? Seven weeks? But the consequence of that ‘deep dive’ (the frustration I feel during such deep dives never seems to end – i’m lucky they don’t push me into a depression) is that I have produced the vocabulary and narrative that I was looking for – and others need. So, now I am ‘unstuck’ (at least for now). -
Difference Between Class(Hierarchy) and Category (List) – is just that.
—“My question concerns technical and scientific language rather than colloquial language: I would like to ask if there is any inclination in English to give the words class and category more or less different meanings or shades of meaning, or are they completely interchangeable in all kinds of use?”— From Elsewhere You CLASSIFY things that exist (Science – referents that exist into a hierarchy) whose organization doesn’t change, and you CATEGORIZE ideas (Philosophy – referents that have meaning into a list) because they can change. So classify(things, hierarchy or order, relatively invariant), vs. categorize(concepts, terms, that might be categorized differently in different contexts). So just as english words have origins in german(commoners, farmers, craftsmen), french(nobility, ruling class, wealthy), Latin and Greek(scholarly or educated classes), English (like all european languages) uses specialized vocabulary for mathematical, philosophical, political/Legal, and scientific classes of vocabulary. English is very ‘precise’ in its use of sets of terms the same way that german is precise in its precisely descriptive terms. Now, do uneducated people conflate terms? All the time. In fact educated people do all the time as well. My favorite examples being the conflation of mathematic (axiomatic), philosophical(rational), and scientific (theoretic), terminology. It’s not uncommon to hear someone make an argument with terms from math, philosophy, and science without having the faintest idea that the terms in each limit the possible properties of argument. For example, True in math and logic is binary(Deductive and Necessary). In philosophy it can be binary(non contradictory), in law it’s ternary(True false and undecidable), in and in science it’s multivalued with False being the only certainty, and truth being little more than an ordinality by triangulation). If someone disagrees with you on usage you can correct them. 😉
-
Difference Between Class(Hierarchy) and Category (List) – is just that.
—“My question concerns technical and scientific language rather than colloquial language: I would like to ask if there is any inclination in English to give the words class and category more or less different meanings or shades of meaning, or are they completely interchangeable in all kinds of use?”— From Elsewhere You CLASSIFY things that exist (Science – referents that exist into a hierarchy) whose organization doesn’t change, and you CATEGORIZE ideas (Philosophy – referents that have meaning into a list) because they can change. So classify(things, hierarchy or order, relatively invariant), vs. categorize(concepts, terms, that might be categorized differently in different contexts). So just as english words have origins in german(commoners, farmers, craftsmen), french(nobility, ruling class, wealthy), Latin and Greek(scholarly or educated classes), English (like all european languages) uses specialized vocabulary for mathematical, philosophical, political/Legal, and scientific classes of vocabulary. English is very ‘precise’ in its use of sets of terms the same way that german is precise in its precisely descriptive terms. Now, do uneducated people conflate terms? All the time. In fact educated people do all the time as well. My favorite examples being the conflation of mathematic (axiomatic), philosophical(rational), and scientific (theoretic), terminology. It’s not uncommon to hear someone make an argument with terms from math, philosophy, and science without having the faintest idea that the terms in each limit the possible properties of argument. For example, True in math and logic is binary(Deductive and Necessary). In philosophy it can be binary(non contradictory), in law it’s ternary(True false and undecidable), in and in science it’s multivalued with False being the only certainty, and truth being little more than an ordinality by triangulation). If someone disagrees with you on usage you can correct them. 😉
-
Differences Between Human and Animal “Language”.
—“What do believe is the qualitative difference between human and animal language?”—Bob Robertson As far as I know animals do not possess language, it only exists within humans. All other creatures merely manage to communicate. Charles Hockett (1967) introduced a generally accepted check list for language, a set of features that all human languages possess. His seven key properties are: 1 – productivity (the ability to create and understand new utterances): system which makes it possible to construct an unlimited number of sentences from a limited set of rules. 2 – arbitrariness (when signs/words do not resemble the things they represent), 3 – displacement (the ability to refer to the past and to things not present), and 4 – duality of pattern (the combination of a phonological system and a grammatical system), 5 – interchangeability (the ability to transmit and to receive messages by exchanging roles), 6 – specialization (when the only function of speech is communication and the speaker does not act out his message), 7 – cultural transmission (the ability to teach/learn from other individuals, e.g. by imitation). As far as I know the reason humans can speak is simply brain size and complexity (long chains). But I won’t go into all of it here. But the ability to imagine futures, imagine stories, ‘self-observe’ and describe those stories in a series of symbols, using a series of rules’ takes a great deal of processing power. While we can see elements of these patterns in parrots, corvids, dolphins, and the apes, we must teach them, and they say very simple things – because they only think very simple things. Assuming we selected and trained enough chimpanzees to use sign language to build a self sustaining community of them, and assuming we could leave them on an island for a few centuries, it’s possible that sign language would persist. I suspect the problem is that it’s hard to produce a community of chimps with the intelligence necessary for perpetuation.
-
Differences Between Human and Animal “Language”.
—“What do believe is the qualitative difference between human and animal language?”—Bob Robertson As far as I know animals do not possess language, it only exists within humans. All other creatures merely manage to communicate. Charles Hockett (1967) introduced a generally accepted check list for language, a set of features that all human languages possess. His seven key properties are: 1 – productivity (the ability to create and understand new utterances): system which makes it possible to construct an unlimited number of sentences from a limited set of rules. 2 – arbitrariness (when signs/words do not resemble the things they represent), 3 – displacement (the ability to refer to the past and to things not present), and 4 – duality of pattern (the combination of a phonological system and a grammatical system), 5 – interchangeability (the ability to transmit and to receive messages by exchanging roles), 6 – specialization (when the only function of speech is communication and the speaker does not act out his message), 7 – cultural transmission (the ability to teach/learn from other individuals, e.g. by imitation). As far as I know the reason humans can speak is simply brain size and complexity (long chains). But I won’t go into all of it here. But the ability to imagine futures, imagine stories, ‘self-observe’ and describe those stories in a series of symbols, using a series of rules’ takes a great deal of processing power. While we can see elements of these patterns in parrots, corvids, dolphins, and the apes, we must teach them, and they say very simple things – because they only think very simple things. Assuming we selected and trained enough chimpanzees to use sign language to build a self sustaining community of them, and assuming we could leave them on an island for a few centuries, it’s possible that sign language would persist. I suspect the problem is that it’s hard to produce a community of chimps with the intelligence necessary for perpetuation.
-
Grammars
So it’s correct to call apriorism an ideal grammar, but not a formal grammar. Thankfully I finally know how to talk about the grammars of each incremental dimension… sigh.
- Mathematical grammars are not contingent because of constant relations. That’s their beauty. The problem is they’re non causal.
- Linguistic (Philosophical) grammars are contingent. That’s their weakness.
- Operational grammars are not contingent. And they’re causal. That’s their beauty.
Grammar A grammar defining formal language L is a quadruple (N,T,R,S), where N is a finite set of nonterminals, T is a finite set of terminal symbols, R is a finite set of productions, and S is an element of N. The set T of terminal symbols is L’s alphabet. Nonterminals are symbols representing language constructs. The sets N and T should not intersect. S is called the start symbol. Productions are rules of the form: alpha->beta, where both alpha and beta are strings of terminals and nonterminals, alpha contains at least one nonterminal. Sentential forms for grammar G=(N,T,R,S) are defined by the following rules: S is a sentential form and if alphabetagamma is a sentential form and production beta->delta belongs to R, then alphadeltagamma is a sentential form as well. L is the set of all strings which are sentential forms consisting entirely of terminal symbols. For a language defined by a grammar, recognition whether a given string (expression) belongs to that language is, in general, a non-trivial task. All languages defined by grammars are recursively enumerable sets. 1. A grammar G is called right linear if all its productions have the form A->alphaB or A->alpha, where A,B in N and alpha is a string of terminal symbols. 2. A grammar G is called context-free if all its productions have the form A->alpha, where A in N and alpha is a string of terminal and nonterminal symbols. 3. A grammar G is called context-sensitive if all its productions have the form alpha->beta, where both alpha and beta are strings of terminal and nonterminal symbols and the length of alpha is not more than the length of beta. 4. A grammar G is called unrestricted if it does not belong to categories 1 through 3. This hierarchy of grammars was introduced by N. Chomsky. The set of languages defined by grammars of every category is a proper superset of that for the previous category. The languages defined by grammars of categories 1 through 3 are recursive sets. A language can be defined by a grammar of category 1 iff it is defined by a regular expression.
-
Grammars
So it’s correct to call apriorism an ideal grammar, but not a formal grammar. Thankfully I finally know how to talk about the grammars of each incremental dimension… sigh.
- Mathematical grammars are not contingent because of constant relations. That’s their beauty. The problem is they’re non causal.
- Linguistic (Philosophical) grammars are contingent. That’s their weakness.
- Operational grammars are not contingent. And they’re causal. That’s their beauty.
Grammar A grammar defining formal language L is a quadruple (N,T,R,S), where N is a finite set of nonterminals, T is a finite set of terminal symbols, R is a finite set of productions, and S is an element of N. The set T of terminal symbols is L’s alphabet. Nonterminals are symbols representing language constructs. The sets N and T should not intersect. S is called the start symbol. Productions are rules of the form: alpha->beta, where both alpha and beta are strings of terminals and nonterminals, alpha contains at least one nonterminal. Sentential forms for grammar G=(N,T,R,S) are defined by the following rules: S is a sentential form and if alphabetagamma is a sentential form and production beta->delta belongs to R, then alphadeltagamma is a sentential form as well. L is the set of all strings which are sentential forms consisting entirely of terminal symbols. For a language defined by a grammar, recognition whether a given string (expression) belongs to that language is, in general, a non-trivial task. All languages defined by grammars are recursively enumerable sets. 1. A grammar G is called right linear if all its productions have the form A->alphaB or A->alpha, where A,B in N and alpha is a string of terminal symbols. 2. A grammar G is called context-free if all its productions have the form A->alpha, where A in N and alpha is a string of terminal and nonterminal symbols. 3. A grammar G is called context-sensitive if all its productions have the form alpha->beta, where both alpha and beta are strings of terminal and nonterminal symbols and the length of alpha is not more than the length of beta. 4. A grammar G is called unrestricted if it does not belong to categories 1 through 3. This hierarchy of grammars was introduced by N. Chomsky. The set of languages defined by grammars of every category is a proper superset of that for the previous category. The languages defined by grammars of categories 1 through 3 are recursive sets. A language can be defined by a grammar of category 1 iff it is defined by a regular expression.