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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)

#131

Post by wmeredith »

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…

The way they started the conversation in the film was with identity which is pretty damn universal to intelligent life.

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

#132

Post by wmeredith »

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.

Contact is a nice break from this, if you're so inclined. [Spoiler alert] The "aliens" speak perfect english and go so far as to present themselves as a human form in an Earth-like environment so as to keep our little human brains from exploding.

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

#133

Post by GenerocUsername »

alanbernstein wrote: post #124
shas3 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

I can try to shine a light on this idiom.

Masala is a popular indian dish here in the US... so popular in fact that it is expected at any indian restaurant. Because of this, the term can be synonomous with 'run of the mill', 'standard', or even 'safe'.

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

#134

Post by shas3 »

alanbernstein wrote: post #124
shas3 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

[Spoiler] A rather technical and intricate story is generically spiced (masala) up with typical thrill-tropes to make it appealing to the masses: military attack on aliens (wise aliens only send video-conference units to the earth in Chiang's story), an international affairs angle, melodrama of General Shang, etc.

I was using it in a sense similar to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_film

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

#135

Post by thesz »

zingermc wrote: post #122
aleeds wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The two-level grammars are doing things in two steps: parsing of part of the text yields a grammar for parsing the rest of it.

The Algol-68 was specified using two level grammar and if I understand it correctly, the declaration part constrained parsing of the statement part so that only valid expressions can be parsed. Parsed statements are valid in the semantic sense, i.e., the subscription can be applied only to array values and parser will reject subscription for scalar values.

To generate the grammar you need to execute some function. And this function depends on the part of input.

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

#136

Post by setr »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #133
alanbernstein wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can try to shine a light on this idiom. Masala is a popular indian dish here in the US... so popular in fact that it is expected at any indian restaurant. Because of this, the term can be synonomous with 'run of the mill', 'standard', or even 'safe'.

>Masala is a popular indian dish here in the US...

Huh? Masala just means the dish uses a bunch of spices (ie masala chai is just tea with cardamom, maybe pepper and cinnamon and other things depending on whose making).

I'm pretty sure regarding film its used to say a "standard movie" or even "boring", thats been "spiced" to taste better, with spices being a set of tropes that most people like.

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

#137

Post by jcranmer »

yourapostasy wrote: post #68
Robotbeat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visible is pretty smack dab in the middle of the Sun's peak spectrum: http://plantphys.info/plant_physiology/images/solarlight.gif And there are other constraints, too. UV is blocked by water (and our lens material) and can induce chemical changes (read: damage) easier than visible light. Damaging sensitive retina. Not that this is an unsolvable problem (bees see UV), but it is a biochemical constraint. Infrared, esp…

> Visible is pretty smack dab in the middle of the Sun's peak spectrum... Does this mean that our vision system evolved to pick up the most energetic part of the Sun's spectrum that ends up at the surface? Did it evolve this way so our vision systems' cellular agglomerate don't have to expend as much energy gathering that part of the spectrum as opposed to other parts of the spectrum? If so, then is there any linkage…

I would point out that the crystal field splitting energies happen to correspond to the region around visible light, which means that being able to finely distinguish gradations of visible light would lead you to be able to visually distinguish between many different organometallic ions. I suspect that matters more than the flux of visible light in the solar spectrum.

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

#138

Post by prebrov »

setr wrote: post #136
GenerocUsername wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can try to shine a light on this idiom. Masala is a popular indian dish here in the US... so popular in fact that it is expected at any indian restaurant. Because of this, the term can be synonomous with 'run of the mill', 'standard', or even 'safe'.

>Masala is a popular indian dish here in the US... Huh? Masala just means the dish uses a bunch of spices (ie masala chai is just tea with cardamom, maybe pepper and cinnamon and other things depending on whose making). I'm pretty sure regarding film its used to say a "standard movie" or even "boring", thats been "spiced" to taste better, with spices being a set of tropes that most people like.

Haha, such an appropriate comment thread in a post about linguistics!

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

#139

Post by Jare »

jinfiesto wrote: post #127
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."

Why would it make sense? There's nothing supporting the idea that if we "work it out" we will understand better, faster, or some other kind of -er. It's certainly an easy way out, but I at least find it unsatisfying.

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

#140

Post by jinfiesto »

Jare wrote: post #139
jinfiesto wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Why would it make sense? There's nothing supporting the idea that if we "work it out" we will understand better, faster, or some other kind of -er. It's certainly an easy way out, but I at least find it unsatisfying.

That's a fair criticism, though I would assume that since the heptapods can see the future, there's some rationale for specifically wanting "Louise" to learn the language first instead of just distributing a copy of "Heptapod for dummies."
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