For some time now I’ve been pursuing the idea that language is the basic locus of computation in the human mind and, correlatively, that it is grounded in processes that are non-computational in kind. This might not seem strange to a computational linguist, but other of course have other ideas. Many humanists are at best skeptical, if not horrified at the idea that the mind is computational in some way. And many cognitive scientists would like to think it’s computation all the way down to individual neurons. Humanistic skepticism is simply out of date while the cognitive scientists are over-eager, especially now that we have other ways of thinking about basic neural processes (e.g. complex dynamics).
More specifically, I identify computation with establishing the mapping between a language string and elements of meaning, whether in comprehension or production. The problem, of course, is that the elements of the string are all there together in one place, one after the other. But the elements of meaning are scattered all over the place in neuro-mental space. Here and there might be a pair of contiguous elements, but for the most part, not. We need a computational process to establish the coupling.
But why? Or, conversely, why doesn’t this problem exist for any other activity?
Questions questions questions.
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