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Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

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Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#101

Post by vidarh »

crazygringo wrote: post #90

It's conceptually interesting, but it also strikes me as a problem that doesn't need solving. Having worked with and taught foreign language, nobody learns the first 1,000 words of a language from a same-language dictionary, nor should they. Children learn from the world; adults learn from classes or a translating dictionary. (Only intermediate/advanced level learners start to use a native dictionary.) The idea of "b…

My first French class did dive into French long before we were at 1,000 words, and we were strictly not allowed to use anything but a same-language dictionary.

We of course did have the benefit of a teacher who would translate if absolutely necessary, but she also insisted on sticking to French in the lessons wherever possible from the very first day. It was far more immersive in my first year of French than e.g. my fourth year of German.

It seemed to work quite well.

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#102

Post by mcbits »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #93
mcbits wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since "gotten" isn't in the list, I'm going with "someplace". It even seems unusual to me as an American, as I would write either "some place" or "somewhere". If the phrase is also unusual in British English, that's definitely something I had never noticed.

Is "gotten" the only word that exists in American English but not British English (apart from "someplace")? Your comment strikes me as trying to bring up a pet hate in an unrelated conversation.

I'm sure it's not the only one, but it's the one that immediately came to mind. I thought it might be in the list because it's close to a foundational word in American English.

Sorry that you chose to read my comment as hatred. Yeah, that's not a real apology.

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#103

Post by ww520 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #96
ww520 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "topological" in topological sort is more related to "network topology" than the mathematical topology (open sets). "Sort" is related to ordering. Topological sort thus is related to the ordering of a network graph's nodes by their edges. You can see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_sorting to see what it actually is. Topological sort is good in dealing with dependency graph. It can turn a dependency gra…

I don't think mathematical topology and network topology are different concepts. The open sets in a network topology are the subsets of nodes that happen to be connected by the edges. So if you can't get from here to there without using a node outside your set, then your set isn't an open set in the network topology.

You're right. You can use the more general mathematical topology to describe a network topology. It's just mathematical topology speaks in sets, compactness, closeness that people not visualize well. The simpler and more specific network topology or network graph can be visualized very well.

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#104

Post by kazinator »

There is nothing wrong with circularity in dictionaries, though. This is a solution in search of a problem.

It may be the case that the definition A happens to use some word B, in whose definition we find word C, whose definition uses A. However, that isn't really a problem, because these definitions are not simply substitutions of exactly one word for another. The definition of A uses numerous other words other than B, that of B uses words in addition to C, and C uses words in addition to A.

That is, the existence of cycles in definitions doesn't necessarily make the definitions irresolvably circular.

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#105

Post by [deleted] »

raldi wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #5

The 60 words: to see, saw, seen. thing, something, what. this, these. the other, another, else, is the same as, be, am, are, being, was, were. one of. two of. person, people. many of, much of. inside. not, do not, does not, did not, some of. all of. there is, there are. more than, live, alive. big. small. very, kind of. if, then. touch. far from. near to, in a place, someplace, where. above. on a side of, hear, heard…

How would you define left and right based on these words?

[deleted]

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#106

Post by kd5bjo »

veridies wrote: post #89

I'd like to see research on this. I have an MA in TESOL and teach ESL, so this is very within my field. While some of what's happening here is basically a self-guided version of classwork, a lot of it seems to rely on very logically precise understandings (defining 'flat' as the shape of unmoving water). I can say from experience that students really struggle with being given a single example like that, even when the…

It also falls into the trap of treating the most common definition as the only one. When you look up left/right in here, you'll find positioning, but nothing about liberal/conservative opinions or a legal guarantee (the right to X) or departing (he left the train station).

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#107

Post by sp332 »

infogulch wrote: post #42
raldi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make use of the right-hand rule, which will suffice so long as they're not made of antimatter.

GP is right. If aliens don't know about CP violation, there is no way to communicate rotational direction that preserves the absolute direction without some shared reference. Because CP-violation is actually the only detectable way to discern between right handedness and left handedness. That is, without CPv, we would have no way to know that we aren't in a hypothetical mirror universe with all rotations reversed. Ev…

Feynman suggested shining polarized light through a solution of glucose and water. This will rotate the plane of the polarization clockwise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose#History

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#108

Post by thelazydogsback »

bladedtoys wrote: post #44
raldi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think a true minimum set of bootstrapping words would be enough to teach the language to hypothetical aliens who might not have access to a group of humans to poll about handedness.

I’d actually like to see a minimum set of _concepts_ necessary to communicate among humans then choose the language that best uses them. Such a list would be great to have for many reasons actually.

For a early super-minimal example, see: https://users.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave.Marshall/AI2/node69.html

Later efforts (for attributed grammars, semantic networks, etc.) used many more primitives. Semantic primitive / "Interlingua" based formalisms never quite caught on for the most part, however.

the and example is an example of an analogical representation -- these have sensorimotor/perceptual groundings and mimic how we actually learn some concepts, but although there has been some research in AI in utilizing analogical representations internally, it is not typical.

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#109

Post by infogulch »

sp332 wrote: post #107
infogulch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is right. If aliens don't know about CP violation, there is no way to communicate rotational direction that preserves the absolute direction without some shared reference. Because CP-violation is actually the only detectable way to discern between right handedness and left handedness. That is, without CPv, we would have no way to know that we aren't in a hypothetical mirror universe with all rotations reversed. Ev…

Feynman suggested shining polarized light through a solution of glucose and water. This will rotate the plane of the polarization clockwise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose#History

Cool, I didn't know that! The glucose molecule has a handedness though, which means it has a rotationally symmetric twin L-Glucose [1] with the same properties. The relative abundance of glucose over l-glucose is purely a property of which one life on earth happened to choose (they're not biologically compatible). So if you communicated blueprints for life on earth including glucose without an absolute rotation reference, the aliens could reconstruct everything two ways: biology with our glucose, or biology with l-glucose, and there's no way to differentiate between them since they would both work the same.

Veritasium makes a great video about symmetries that's very relevant here [2], and might suggest a slightly more practical way to correctly communicate handedness to aliens. The full CP violation experiment isn't necessary, as long as we assume that the aliens live in a universe made of mostly matter (as opposed to antimatter) like ours, and we can communicate the parity violation experiment (~measuring the preferential atomic decay direction of cobalt atoms near 0K in a magnetic field [3]), they should be able to reconstruct an absolute reference for rotation.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Glucose

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE

[3]: http://www.physics.utah.edu/~belz/phys5110/PhysRev.104.254.p...

Re: Multi-Layer Dictionary (2016)

#110

Post by taoromera »

raidicy wrote: post #37
grenoire wrote: post #2

Has there been any attempts to 'translate' this into other languages? I'm struggling most often with vocabulary first, whereas the grammar is much easier for me to grasp (programming helps?)

Would pay for a Japanese version of this.

Learning words in Japanese could mean:

1. learning the sounds and the meaning (using a phonetic script, such as hiragana or romaji - the Latin alphabet) or

2. Learning sound, meaning and kanji (the ideograms)

Learning the kanji is a topic in itself and there are dozens of methods and approaches, but if you like the "start with the most valuable first then build on top of that one bit of knowledge at a time" approach, you might be interested in a project I worked on a while ago: https://prezi.com/m/ihobq38emnq3/env3/

I have flashcards with example sentences up to the first 300 items or so, contact me if you're interested.

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