[ExI] all we are is just llms

[William Flynn Wallace]

Really? My brain has visual perceptions and sounds and imaginations and
non-verbal thoughts and music and many things going on that can be
*described* with language but are not language.

How can something be communication but not language?  The brain
communicates with itself all the time.   bill w


On Sat, Apr 22, 2023 at 6:49 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 22/04/2023 11:01, Gordon Swobe wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2023 at 2:43 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>> (you think that pointing is not a language? I suspect many deaf people
>> would disagree)
>>
>
> Fine with me. Sign language is also a form of language.
>
>
>> This is why referring to linguistics is not helping.
>>
>
> ? Because we are going to include sign language in our definition of
> language, linguistics is not helping? Linguists consider sign language also
> to be a form of language.
>
> In our primitive caveman example, in which he points at let us say an
> animal, his first "words" in sign language translate to something like
> "Look over there! See what I see?" Based on how frantic or calm is his
> gesturing, his interlocutor might also know if his friend perceives the
> animal as a threat or as food. Now he has two words. Before long, Fred and
> Barney are also grunting identifiable noises as their sign language evolves
> into more complex verbal language.
>
>
>> As I said earlier, it's the wrong discipline here.
>>
>
> Language models model language and linguistics is the science of
> language.
>
> > Referents, being internal conceptual models, *are made of language*.
> They must be, because there's nothing else to work with, in the brain.
>
> Really? My brain has visual perceptions and sounds and imaginations and
> non-verbal thoughts and music and many things going on that can be
> *described* with language but are not language.
>
> I understand what you are trying to say about the "language of the brain"
> but I would say you are conflating neurology and language.
>
> The statement "referents are made of language" is simply false on the
> definition of referent. Only a tiny subset of words in the English language
> have language as referents. Linguists call them meta-words. They are parts
> of speech and similar. For example, the word "nouns" refers to the set of
> all nouns.
>
>
> No no, you've completely shimmied past what I'm saying, there.
>
> Partly my own fault:
>
> This is why referring to linguistics is not helping.
>>
>
> ? Because we are going to include sign language in our definition of
> language, linguistics is not helping? Linguists consider sign language also
> to be a form of language.
>
>
> No, I was referring to your whole reply. I'm looking at the fairground
> ride, trying to see how it works, how it compares to the way we work, and
> what that means for the future. You're analysing the cash flow.
> Yeah, ok, forget the strained analogy.
>
> I'm not conflating neurology and linguistics (which is what I assume you
> mean when you say 'language' here), I'm saying that neurology is the
> relevant discipline for analysing this, and linguistics is not.
>
>
> > My brain has visual perceptions and sounds and imaginations and
> non-verbal thoughts and music and many things going on that can be
> *described* with language
>
> Precisely.
>
> > but are not language
>
> They are constructed with a specific language. My whole point is, as the
> brain can experience visual perceptions and sounds and imaginations and
> non-verbal thoughts and music and many things, when all it has to use are
> neural spike trains, which are binary signals, then all those experiences
> must necessarily be made from the brain's language of binary signals.
>
> > Language models model language and linguistics is the science of
> language.
>
> If that was all they did, they wouldn't be very interesting or useful.
> Except to linguists.
>
> I don't know much about linguistics, but I understand it to be the study
> of human languages. Not the study of AI. Just because "Large Language
> Models" has the word 'language' in it, doesn't mean that studying human
> languages is relevant. As I said before, we could call them Large Means of
> Communication Models. Would that make Communication Studies the relevant
> discipline?
>
> You might find this guy's posts interesting:
> https://seantrott.substack.com/p/humans-llms-and-the-symbol-grounding-fc4
>
> Ben
>
>
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