I think chatgpt is basically like a computer equivalent of figuring out language processing to an alright degree which is like p. cool and I guess enough to trick people into thinking the mechanical turk has an agenda but yeah still not thinking
i guess my issue is that neural networks as they exist now can’t emerge property, they are fitting to data to predict next word in the best way possible, or most probable in unknown sentence. It’s not how anybody learns, not mice, not humans.
Something akin to experiments with free floating robot arms with bolted on computer vision seem like much more viable approach, but there the problem is they don’t have right architecture to feed it into, at least i don’t think they do, and even then it will probably will stall out for a time at animal level.
my problem is at some point they’re gonna smoosh chatgpt and that sort of stuff and other shit together and it might be approximating consciousness but nerds will be like "it’s just math! " and it’ll make commander Data sad n’ they won’t even care
well of course they could, flawless imitation of consciousness, after all, is the same as consciousness (aside from morality, which will be unknowable), just not here at the moment
you have running inner monologue, sure, but when you solve something like how many b’s in blackberry, do you honestly say you thinking in words about a problem?
you have concepts/ideas/pictures/words/signs/symbols wheezing by, that are not embodied in words until desired to. And until you engage in rechecking/reflecting, i don’t think it’s very likely this thinking is in language, more like you can interpret flashes of thoughts into words if you decide to dwell on them, but are not necessitated to do so, and i don’t think ordinary engagement with imagination requires language. (could have swore i linked some article related to math/language/fmri, that shown ideas (math in that case) thinking is not exactly located in language areas of brain)
look i’m not a linguist so i’m not going to make the proper argument here but the defining features of our type of human are the specific adaptations for language, how people behave is culturally defined and culture is understood and communicated through language.
frankly likening the experience of sensations to knowledge of them without language sounds very silly to me.
reducing ideas to sensations is some sensualist reductivism (sensations is what we get from outside world from our sensory organs, thoughts is your brain stuff doing something), i can do math or imagine things without inner voice vocalizing it, unless language comprehension area of a brain is lowkey involved in this. Of course higher order thinking, reflections/comparisons start to slow down and you can start to employ language inside to hold an idea for some time more. (i am language of thought simp i guess)
Language is a medium of transmission of ideas (to another implied person), not medium of ideas itself, you can have an idea without language, you cannot have language without ideas, as it would be just bunch of non-sense (as in - not carrying any sense). (as an aside, social conformity can be transmitted by body language perfectly well).
i’m not trying to do reductivism, -this is admittedly outside my expertise- i simply don’t understand how you square this concept of ideas existing outside language when that’s inexpressable without language.
as an aside, social conformity can be transmitted by body language perfectly well
i hope i didn’t make it sound like verbal speech was the key here, the muscle and bone adaptions that make complex speech possible were accompanied by brain stuff. people with disabilities making some forms of language inaccessible still use language!
i simply don’t understand how you square this concept of ideas existing outside language when that’s inexpressable without language.
I think the easiest way to conceptualise it is when you’re trying to explain something but struggling to find the right words - the idea is there fully formed in your mind, but you still have to search for the language to express it to someone else.
i mean that you have language of a brain (thoughts/shapes/associations/memories) that float inside brain in some patterns, like waves on a pond. You can decide to express them, to explain/translate them to another person or not. I’m saying what i believe, opinions of course differ, some people think language guides ideas.
(as an exercise, what is decision in language form, explicitly? while i can buy that thoughts and objects-symbols might be closely related, verbs and actions are very far removed, feely-wise, to me)
as aside if something is not expressible by language, it doesn’t mean it’s not real (nor is it real because i like to think it exists tbh), not something as private (and as of yet, due to mri restrictions, immeasurable) as thoughts. *(as an absurd example, is electromagnetic wave real for ancient egyptian? i don’t think a single word will match or concept of light fits with ancient egyptian ideas)
fascinating article. i definitely think more along ‘language-first’ lines but the case raises interesting questions. i’m unsure if the idea of languagelessness or thinking about language in a more inclusive way would be the way forward. it’s fascinating how Ildefonso was without language but also kind of enveloped in language-- like understanding/demonstrating ‘macho’ for instance. very cool.
i enjoy that you and the author can experience/perceive this non linguistic thought while having language, it must be a ymmv type of thing cause i really don’t, not only is my brain colonized with words i’m also all-in on cultural relativism lol
if i were to express how i think, like low level school problems or imaginative exercises (imagining physical objects , fantasizing/remembering sensations, gaming logic) occurs completely silently, more like vague shape-like or action-reaction-type thingies (?best words i can describe them), i don’t catch single words related to that. I do catch snippets of vocalized ideas if i start to focus more on something, and if i have to think from multiple sides or harder problem, i definitely start to symbolize/inner-vocalize ideas in some sense, cause if i don’t - they just flee from memory without trace, so for me inner-language is like freezing something intangible inside the mind to have time to “look” at it. (also multiple languages play funny stuff with inner monologue, so that’s why i’m sympathetic to idea i’m translating from some kind of inner thought language into real language, instead of real (first) language being primary)
*as a point of interest, do you speak 1 language or more? because i definitely don’t run word to word translations when i speak (fluently, shittily known languages definitely stall out in inner monologue of “fuck, que la worda for la chaise” mini-panic), it’s kinda self-obvious to me (not so much in written language, where i can sense reading/writing thoughts expressed explicitly in words)
i simply don’t understand how you square this concept of ideas existing outside language when that’s inexpressable without language.
This is just question-begging. “Everything exists within language because you can’t express anything without language.” No, it’s because you’re putting something into the format of linguistic expression that language becomes a necessary element. That doesn’t mean that the actual internal experience depends on language, because it clearly does not and I’m struggling to figure out how to explain this to you because you’ve just talked yourself into it with poorly-constructed syllogisms.
Language is helpful for encoding ideas into long-term memory, but that doesn’t mean all ideas are fundamentally mediated by language, and even the communication of ideas is not fundamentally mediated by language (though most of it is for humans).
as an aside, social conformity can be transmitted by body language perfectly well
i hope i didn’t make it sound like verbal speech was the key here, the muscle and bone adaptions that make complex speech possible were accompanied by brain stuff. people with disabilities making some forms of language inaccessible still use language!
Body language is not literally language, and would be more accurately described, if we’re talking about conscious communication, as “body gestures”. Gestures are not the same thing as signs, as in sign languages used by people with certain disabilities. Body language furthermore is often unconscious or fully involuntary, which I think we can agree makes it not even a gesture.
You have argued yourself into a position where you are asserting that 12-month-olds do not have an idea of what their primary caretakers look like in the absence of something to gesture to, but earthworms do have ideas because they exhibit body “language”. Please just read even an introductory article on this topic before going around making assertions about it, because it’s silly to just go off of vibes, or if you can’t be bothered to, just have some epistemic humility.
You have argued yourself into a position where you are asserting that 12-month-olds do not have an idea of what their primary caretakers look like in the absence of something to gesture to, but earthworms do have ideas because they exhibit body “language”
who are you arguing with. this is absolute nonsense. could you try again without making wildly uncharitable interpretations and belittling me?
That’s the logical implication of the two main points I responded to. It suggests that a creature does not have ideas that it cannot plausibly attempt to communicate, and it equates body language with actual language. If you have a problem with this, you could tell me where I was wrong instead of merely communicating incredulity, as I found your assertions ridiculous as well, but I still made some attempt to offer a refutation.
Here, I’ll even start for you: Perhaps language is a necessary but not sufficient condition for having ideas, is that more like what you’re going for? But then what is an idea at all? How do we distinguish “language” that has ideas versus “language” that does not? What is the production of language without ideas? This would seem to suggest that language isn’t necessarily communicative, and by robbing language of both its formal structure (which you do when you conflate it with gesture) and intentionality (which is the implication of having language without ideas), language is reduced to being “information” in the broadest material sense, and now you’d need to establish why the pitter-patter of rain on a windowsill isn’t language, because that is still information. Maybe you agree with me that my new premise was false (“language is a necessary but not sufficient condition for having ideas”), but then that still puts you at the earthworms having ideas problem, which requires that you narrow your definition of “language” to something resembling how linguists actually define it (excluding gesture, for example).
However, I find all of this very ancillary to the point about the 12-month-old, which I don’t think the framework you’ve presented so far has any capacity to refute. Your overbroad definition of language makes this point muddier, but as in the previous comment I think that such a definition can still be humored and produce the outcome that your claim about ideas is false.
Edit RE “uncharitable”: When you’re arguing over definitions, even if you wanted to say that I’m talking about edge cases, that’s still completely valid, because that’s a central part of what defining things is. You can’t just say that yours is the better definition and call foul when someone points out that it includes a bunch of ridiculous things.
you don’t think in language and words tho
neither does the computer!!!
I think chatgpt is basically like a computer equivalent of figuring out language processing to an alright degree which is like p. cool and I guess enough to trick people into thinking the mechanical turk has an agenda but yeah still not thinking
i guess my issue is that neural networks as they exist now can’t emerge property, they are fitting to data to predict next word in the best way possible, or most probable in unknown sentence. It’s not how anybody learns, not mice, not humans.
Something akin to experiments with free floating robot arms with bolted on computer vision seem like much more viable approach, but there the problem is they don’t have right architecture to feed it into, at least i don’t think they do, and even then it will probably will stall out for a time at animal level.
my problem is at some point they’re gonna smoosh chatgpt and that sort of stuff and other shit together and it might be approximating consciousness but nerds will be like "it’s just math!
" and it’ll make commander Data sad 
n’ they won’t even care
well of course they could, flawless imitation of consciousness, after all, is the same as consciousness (aside from morality, which will be unknowable), just not here at the moment
A mechanical turk is a fake AI with a human behind it
am i missing this being sarcastic in a way because people do think in language and words
you have running inner monologue, sure, but when you solve something like how many b’s in blackberry, do you honestly say you thinking in words about a problem?
you have concepts/ideas/pictures/words/signs/symbols wheezing by, that are not embodied in words until desired to. And until you engage in rechecking/reflecting, i don’t think it’s very likely this thinking is in language, more like you can interpret flashes of thoughts into words if you decide to dwell on them, but are not necessitated to do so, and i don’t think ordinary engagement with imagination requires language. (could have swore i linked some article related to math/language/fmri, that shown ideas (math in that case) thinking is not exactly located in language areas of brain)
look i’m not a linguist so i’m not going to make the proper argument here but the defining features of our type of human are the specific adaptations for language, how people behave is culturally defined and culture is understood and communicated through language.
frankly likening the experience of sensations to knowledge of them without language sounds very silly to me.
reducing ideas to sensations is some sensualist reductivism (sensations is what we get from outside world from our sensory organs, thoughts is your brain stuff doing something), i can do math or imagine things without inner voice vocalizing it, unless language comprehension area of a brain is lowkey involved in this. Of course higher order thinking, reflections/comparisons start to slow down and you can start to employ language inside to hold an idea for some time more. (i am language of thought simp i guess)
Language is a medium of transmission of ideas (to another implied person), not medium of ideas itself, you can have an idea without language, you cannot have language without ideas, as it would be just bunch of non-sense (as in - not carrying any sense). (as an aside, social conformity can be transmitted by body language perfectly well).
i’m not trying to do reductivism, -this is admittedly outside my expertise- i simply don’t understand how you square this concept of ideas existing outside language when that’s inexpressable without language.
i hope i didn’t make it sound like verbal speech was the key here, the muscle and bone adaptions that make complex speech possible were accompanied by brain stuff. people with disabilities making some forms of language inaccessible still use language!
I think the easiest way to conceptualise it is when you’re trying to explain something but struggling to find the right words - the idea is there fully formed in your mind, but you still have to search for the language to express it to someone else.
i mean that you have language of a brain (thoughts/shapes/associations/memories) that float inside brain in some patterns, like waves on a pond. You can decide to express them, to explain/translate them to another person or not. I’m saying what i believe, opinions of course differ, some people think language guides ideas.
(as an exercise, what is decision in language form, explicitly? while i can buy that thoughts and objects-symbols might be closely related, verbs and actions are very far removed, feely-wise, to me)
you might find this article at least interesting (it’s not strictly language of thought supportive) https://neuroanthropology.net/2010/07/21/life-without-language/
as aside if something is not expressible by language, it doesn’t mean it’s not real (nor is it real because i like to think it exists tbh), not something as private (and as of yet, due to mri restrictions, immeasurable) as thoughts. *(as an absurd example, is electromagnetic wave real for ancient egyptian? i don’t think a single word will match or concept of light fits with ancient egyptian ideas)
fascinating article. i definitely think more along ‘language-first’ lines but the case raises interesting questions. i’m unsure if the idea of languagelessness or thinking about language in a more inclusive way would be the way forward. it’s fascinating how Ildefonso was without language but also kind of enveloped in language-- like understanding/demonstrating ‘macho’ for instance. very cool.
i enjoy that you and the author can experience/perceive this non linguistic thought while having language, it must be a ymmv type of thing cause i really don’t, not only is my brain colonized with words i’m also all-in on cultural relativism lol
if i were to express how i think, like low level school problems or imaginative exercises (imagining physical objects , fantasizing/remembering sensations, gaming logic) occurs completely silently, more like vague shape-like or action-reaction-type thingies (?best words i can describe them), i don’t catch single words related to that. I do catch snippets of vocalized ideas if i start to focus more on something, and if i have to think from multiple sides or harder problem, i definitely start to symbolize/inner-vocalize ideas in some sense, cause if i don’t - they just flee from memory without trace, so for me inner-language is like freezing something intangible inside the mind to have time to “look” at it. (also multiple languages play funny stuff with inner monologue, so that’s why i’m sympathetic to idea i’m translating from some kind of inner thought language into real language, instead of real (first) language being primary)
*as a point of interest, do you speak 1 language or more? because i definitely don’t run word to word translations when i speak (fluently, shittily known languages definitely stall out in inner monologue of “fuck, que la worda for la chaise” mini-panic), it’s kinda self-obvious to me (not so much in written language, where i can sense reading/writing thoughts expressed explicitly in words)
This is just question-begging. “Everything exists within language because you can’t express anything without language.” No, it’s because you’re putting something into the format of linguistic expression that language becomes a necessary element. That doesn’t mean that the actual internal experience depends on language, because it clearly does not and I’m struggling to figure out how to explain this to you because you’ve just talked yourself into it with poorly-constructed syllogisms.
Language is helpful for encoding ideas into long-term memory, but that doesn’t mean all ideas are fundamentally mediated by language, and even the communication of ideas is not fundamentally mediated by language (though most of it is for humans).
Body language is not literally language, and would be more accurately described, if we’re talking about conscious communication, as “body gestures”. Gestures are not the same thing as signs, as in sign languages used by people with certain disabilities. Body language furthermore is often unconscious or fully involuntary, which I think we can agree makes it not even a gesture.
You have argued yourself into a position where you are asserting that 12-month-olds do not have an idea of what their primary caretakers look like in the absence of something to gesture to, but earthworms do have ideas because they exhibit body “language”. Please just read even an introductory article on this topic before going around making assertions about it, because it’s silly to just go off of vibes, or if you can’t be bothered to, just have some epistemic humility.
who are you arguing with. this is absolute nonsense. could you try again without making wildly uncharitable interpretations and belittling me?
That’s the logical implication of the two main points I responded to. It suggests that a creature does not have ideas that it cannot plausibly attempt to communicate, and it equates body language with actual language. If you have a problem with this, you could tell me where I was wrong instead of merely communicating incredulity, as I found your assertions ridiculous as well, but I still made some attempt to offer a refutation.
Here, I’ll even start for you: Perhaps language is a necessary but not sufficient condition for having ideas, is that more like what you’re going for? But then what is an idea at all? How do we distinguish “language” that has ideas versus “language” that does not? What is the production of language without ideas? This would seem to suggest that language isn’t necessarily communicative, and by robbing language of both its formal structure (which you do when you conflate it with gesture) and intentionality (which is the implication of having language without ideas), language is reduced to being “information” in the broadest material sense, and now you’d need to establish why the pitter-patter of rain on a windowsill isn’t language, because that is still information. Maybe you agree with me that my new premise was false (“language is a necessary but not sufficient condition for having ideas”), but then that still puts you at the earthworms having ideas problem, which requires that you narrow your definition of “language” to something resembling how linguists actually define it (excluding gesture, for example).
However, I find all of this very ancillary to the point about the 12-month-old, which I don’t think the framework you’ve presented so far has any capacity to refute. Your overbroad definition of language makes this point muddier, but as in the previous comment I think that such a definition can still be humored and produce the outcome that your claim about ideas is false.
Edit RE “uncharitable”: When you’re arguing over definitions, even if you wanted to say that I’m talking about edge cases, that’s still completely valid, because that’s a central part of what defining things is. You can’t just say that yours is the better definition and call foul when someone points out that it includes a bunch of ridiculous things.
I think Helen Keller has some writings on her experience learning language as an adult(?) that strengthen your point.