[ExI] Universal languages (was: wta-talk Voting Members ...)

[Bryan Bishop]

On Saturday 29 December 2007, Vladimir Nesov wrote:
> of common concepts, not special kind of language. Communication with
> other kinds of minds depends on kinds of imagery and processes that
> can exist in them and consists in evoking of analogous thought
> processes in communicating persons by any available means.

Vladimir, thank you for your excellent post. Already I have found myself 
using the Hofstadter quote in other conversations, as it is important 
in the history of ideas. And I am not yet ready to let this thread die.

I think many of us here have tried imagining what "other kinds of minds" 
really means, and it can mean a great many things, especially since we 
cannot completely state with certainty what exactly a mind is or what 
an exotic variation on 'mind' would look like. 

I wanted to talk about how to make those analogies for an exotic mind, 
but as I consider this, I find it limiting as it assumes that I already 
know that certain signals of mine trigger certain analagous thoughts in 
the foreign mind system.

How could that be? I start with no knowledge of the foreign system 
except that it must, somehow, operate by the same laws of logic, 
simplicity and thermodynamics that I do.

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/