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A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

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Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#121

Post by bcherny »

shas3 wrote: post #74
remarkEon wrote: post #65

One thing that I think always confuses me about any science fiction work that deals with Humans meeting Aliens for the first time is that it seems to assume it's all on us to figure out a common language. I have to admit, my assumption if that if some species is sufficiently advanced to figure out interstellar travel they'd likely be able to decypher our language and find a way for us to communicate.

The story sorts this out. Absent an interpreter, you necessarily need to be able to talk to someone who knows the other language so that you can query them, etc. Realistically, there's no way to intercept or interpret communications as the protocols are almost impossible to figure out (that is another layer of 'language'). Let say an alien intercepts a TV signal, can they convert it back to video? It is almost imposs…

If I recall, this was a core idea in Godel Escher Bach. Is meaning inherent to information, or do you always need a compatible interpreter (eg. a human mind)?

Messages don't exist by themselves, but are layered. Eg. To understand that a radio signal is a video I need to also understand video protocols, RF communication, etc.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#122

Post by zingermc »

aleeds wrote: post #71
zingermc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm being too literal, but how can a grammar be Turing complete? The usual definition of Turing completeness is being able to simulate an arbitrary Turing machine. Typical human languages don't do beta reductions like Lambda Calculus, so I fail to see how a grammar (or the language produced by the grammar) can be said to compute anything.

From what I understand, the idea is you have some string S and an input T, and running a grammar G on ST will produce an output. Sometimes they won't halt. Just like a Turing machine. In this analogy G is the 'universal Turing machine'

Interesting! I think I am starting to get it. To double check, is running a grammar the same as parsing?

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#123

Post by civilian »

> At one point in the movie, the character Ian [Jeremy Renner] says, “The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that if you immerse yourself in another language, you can rewire your brain.” And that made me laugh out loud, because Whorf never said anything about rewiring your brain. But since this wasn’t the linguist speaking, it’s fine that another character is misunderstanding the Sapir-Whorf.

As a Biochemist-- this is not a misunderstanding! Everything in our brain is rewired as we learn things and as we develop heuristics. So of course thinking differently relies on rewiring your brain. There's no spirit or soul hidden in our brain, it's all wires.

This linguist needs a neurobiology course. :3

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#124

Post by alanbernstein »

shas3 wrote: post #53
dudeonthenet wrote: post #17

It's also worth making the distinction between the movie and the impressive short story that the movie is based on, which the article completely fails to mention: Ted Chiang - Story of Your Life [1] I've read Chiang's book about two years before the movie aired and it really is top-notch speculative fiction that I highly recommend to any Sci-Fi lover. Even though Denis Villeneuve, Eric Heisserer and Ted Chiang himsel…

[spoiler] Also, the story clearly has a theme of a person being a helpless observer of their own life (prescience or not (see Gwern's post [0]). The movie has a time-travel twist that's very, to use an indian term, "masala". [0] https://www.gwern.net/Story%20Of%20Your%20Life

I'm intrigued by this use of "masala", can you explain? Urban dictionary has a few options, not sure which of those you mean, if any.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#125

Post by alpha_squared »

catshirt wrote: post #113
alpha_squared wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like an awfully ethnocentric perspective. It sounds like, "we understand things this way, therefore things can only be understood this way." I'm not saying there is or isn't more than one way to understand complex topics, but that it's possible there may not be only one way.

seemed like joke not a criticism. I laughed.

The author is arguing that stance, quite strongly, in another comment.[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13971010

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#126

Post by canjobear »

DowsingSpoon wrote: post #117
skizm wrote: post #25

What bothered me the most is that the way they start the "conversation" with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I'm not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I'm biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of som…

Mathematics is founded in logic. You cannot use logic to prove logic. Instead, we start with some axioms and build from there using rules that we think we reasonable and intuitive. I vaguely recall learning about a position in philosophy that holds that these axioms and rules come from the way the human mind is structured. If this is true then there is no reason to think that an alien mind would use the same axioms.…

> For example, something that seems entirely fundamental to us might require a very complicated proof in the alien system.

True, but there is a bound on how much complexity of a concept can differ across axiom systems. Complexity (up to an additive constant) is an objective fact independent of any particular axiom system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity#Invarian...

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#127

Post by jinfiesto »

remarkEon wrote: post #65

One thing that I think always confuses me about any science fiction work that deals with Humans meeting Aliens for the first time is that it seems to assume it's all on us to figure out a common language. I have to admit, my assumption if that if some species is sufficiently advanced to figure out interstellar travel they'd likely be able to decypher our language and find a way for us to communicate.

The movie addresses this. Since the entire point of the heptapods visit is to force humans to learn their language, it makes sense that they would force humanity to "work it out."

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#128

Post by 6stringmerc »

civilian wrote: post #123

> At one point in the movie, the character Ian [Jeremy Renner] says, “The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that if you immerse yourself in another language, you can rewire your brain.” And that made me laugh out loud, because Whorf never said anything about rewiring your brain. But since this wasn’t the linguist speaking, it’s fine that another character is misunderstanding the Sapir-Whorf. As a Biochemist-- this is not a…

I like the wiring analogy, and also ones that describe the functional mind akin to vast, complex spider webs upon which information zooms around. Making connections, turns, associations, firing individual bits or entire areas into vivid use.

If we didn't "rewire" as you put it, I think we'd have a very big problem as a species learning new things!

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#129

Post by eveningcoffee »

skizm wrote: post #25

What bothered me the most is that the way they start the "conversation" with the aliens is by using names and human concepts (walking, eating, etc.). I'm not a trained linguist or anything, but it seems to me they should start with concepts that are universal: mainly numbers. Maybe as a CS guy I'm biased (since my language is symbols and numbers), but literally every conceivable language has to contain numbers of som…

Perhaps even something more abstract like circle or boundary (drawn on the ground with chalk) and in and out.

Re: A linguist on Arrival's alien language (2016)

#130

Post by s_kilk »

bcherny wrote: post #121
shas3 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story sorts this out. Absent an interpreter, you necessarily need to be able to talk to someone who knows the other language so that you can query them, etc. Realistically, there's no way to intercept or interpret communications as the protocols are almost impossible to figure out (that is another layer of 'language'). Let say an alien intercepts a TV signal, can they convert it back to video? It is almost imposs…

If I recall, this was a core idea in Godel Escher Bach. Is meaning inherent to information, or do you always need a compatible interpreter (eg. a human mind)? Messages don't exist by themselves, but are layered. Eg. To understand that a radio signal is a video I need to also understand video protocols, RF communication, etc.

[I have my copy of GEB beside me]

In GEB, Hofstadter talks about the Three Layers of Any Message:

1 - The Frame Message

2 - The Outer Message

3 - The Inner Message

He uses the example of a "message in a bottle" washed up on the beach. The "Frame" is the recognition that the bottle is sealed and contains a dry piece of paper. The "Outer Message" would be the fact that the writing on the paper is in French, and the "Inner Message" would be the actual contents of the French writing.

At each stage, the reader needs to have some set of concepts or language with which to grapple with the nested messages, if they have any hope of finally decoding the Inner Message.

For example, a wild boar wouldn't recognise the Frame Message in the first place, while a German person might recognise the Frame Message, and recognise the Outer Message ("This text is definitely French"), but be stymied by an in-ability to actually read French.

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