"Language has always been sloppy and messy, and it always will be, but nevertheless we’re probably better off trying to sanitize ours as much as possible."
No, language is about 99.5% orderly. People use it sloppily and make a mess of it, indeed they do, but that's not language's fault. And what do you mean by "sanitize?" Sounds ominous. How about we work on the .5% that needs fixing?
IMO Chomsky's idea about language is relevant. However, it's crucial to note that Chomsky's conception of language extends beyond classical grammar and sentence structures. Rather, he views language as encompassing the entirety of the mind-world interaction, including signs, gestures, and even thought itself. Interestingly, this perspective aligns more closely with Kantian categories than being uniquely Chomskyan.
I'm not sure that Chomsky's central argument revolves around language residing in the brain per-se but rather around the genetic basis of language, positing it as a developmental entity that undergoes growth. This aspect I find intriguing. I agree that Chomsky's attempt to delineate the mechanics of language were a failure, so was his assertion of language's evolutionary idleness - although his proposition regarding its swift emergence 100-50kyr ago lines up nicely with the cognitive explosion evidenced by archaeological findings.
Applying this Darwinian-Kantian cocktail to the evolutionary history of Man, Chomskyan linguistics have the potential to elucidate the origins of neurological differences between the races, particularly one race that emerged in Europe 100-50kyr ago, which, ironically, is most certainly a nightmare for Noam's political mind.
Overall, while Chomsky's aspiration to elevate linguistics to a rigorous scientific discipline may have failed, his fundamental notion of language as a universal encode-decode mechanism facilitating communication among individuals equipped with similar faculties holds merit. Nevertheless, it's essential to recognize that this story is fundamentally a philosophical system of thought NOT crafted by Chomsky.
I enjoyed this and felt the one thing it lacked was Chomsky's thrilling conclusion, which he states explicitly, that language evolved not for communication but for thinking. You get at that in so many words but he says it out loud, which is hilarious to me, someone who generally likes his theories and way of thinking about language. I believe this may have been his realization around the time of the Minimalist program in the 90s. It's not so crazy in as far as you can see language being a useful intermediate for organized and logical thinking, but it's a bit much to accept untested.
The Chomsky story for me will always be about the 20th century being the great rationalist century. He's the arch-rationalist who inevitably backs himself into a corner of language being pure mind. Seems like this will have to give way to empirics one way or another (LLM simulation or who knows).
"Language has always been sloppy and messy, and it always will be, but nevertheless we’re probably better off trying to sanitize ours as much as possible."
No, language is about 99.5% orderly. People use it sloppily and make a mess of it, indeed they do, but that's not language's fault. And what do you mean by "sanitize?" Sounds ominous. How about we work on the .5% that needs fixing?
Thanks for the article worth reading.
IMO Chomsky's idea about language is relevant. However, it's crucial to note that Chomsky's conception of language extends beyond classical grammar and sentence structures. Rather, he views language as encompassing the entirety of the mind-world interaction, including signs, gestures, and even thought itself. Interestingly, this perspective aligns more closely with Kantian categories than being uniquely Chomskyan.
I'm not sure that Chomsky's central argument revolves around language residing in the brain per-se but rather around the genetic basis of language, positing it as a developmental entity that undergoes growth. This aspect I find intriguing. I agree that Chomsky's attempt to delineate the mechanics of language were a failure, so was his assertion of language's evolutionary idleness - although his proposition regarding its swift emergence 100-50kyr ago lines up nicely with the cognitive explosion evidenced by archaeological findings.
Applying this Darwinian-Kantian cocktail to the evolutionary history of Man, Chomskyan linguistics have the potential to elucidate the origins of neurological differences between the races, particularly one race that emerged in Europe 100-50kyr ago, which, ironically, is most certainly a nightmare for Noam's political mind.
Overall, while Chomsky's aspiration to elevate linguistics to a rigorous scientific discipline may have failed, his fundamental notion of language as a universal encode-decode mechanism facilitating communication among individuals equipped with similar faculties holds merit. Nevertheless, it's essential to recognize that this story is fundamentally a philosophical system of thought NOT crafted by Chomsky.
I enjoyed this and felt the one thing it lacked was Chomsky's thrilling conclusion, which he states explicitly, that language evolved not for communication but for thinking. You get at that in so many words but he says it out loud, which is hilarious to me, someone who generally likes his theories and way of thinking about language. I believe this may have been his realization around the time of the Minimalist program in the 90s. It's not so crazy in as far as you can see language being a useful intermediate for organized and logical thinking, but it's a bit much to accept untested.
The Chomsky story for me will always be about the 20th century being the great rationalist century. He's the arch-rationalist who inevitably backs himself into a corner of language being pure mind. Seems like this will have to give way to empirics one way or another (LLM simulation or who knows).