Communications on a National Project
3/7/2004 7:37 AM
Dick,
Natural languages are the most
complete knowledge representation languages we have. They are a superset of every artificial language ever
invented.
<quote>
To surrender our understanding back into language is to lose
all and bid later generations to start again with a fraction of the resources we have now -- after decades of study....
On the contrary, whenever you
translate from natural language to any artificial language, you inevitably lose
an enormous amount of meaning.
Such a translation is always performed for a specific purpose, and it
may be extremely valuable for that purpose. But that translation inevitably loses a very large amount of
meaning for every other purpose.
<quote>
My judgment is that natural and artificial languages all
survive out of necessities that have little to do with knowledge representation
and preservation. I think the survival objective of natural language is
diplomacy -- first and foremost -- the need to disagree without being
disagreeable. The cardinal rule of diplomacy -- "A problem postponed is a
problem solved".
Emphatically NO! You need the flexibility of natural languages for every branch of science and engineering -- including mathematics.
If you freeze your ontology, you abandon all possibility of new discoveries, new inventions, new applications, new science, and new technology.
Basic point: natural languages are capable of as
much precision as any version of logic. Just look at the specifications of CLCE (Common Logic
Controlled English):
http://www.jfsowa.com/clce/specs.htm
Anything you might want to say in
logic can be expressed in CLCE with exactly the same precision. However, you cannot do any kind of
design, development, or innovation in any branch of science or engineering if
you restrict yourself to CLCE. The
only things you can talk about in CLCE are old topics that everybody
knows. You can't express anything
in CLCE other than old material or details about the old stuff that are
logically deducible from what is already known.
Without the flexibility of natural languages,
innovation is impossible.
John