Re: Re:

you would have been proud my friend the sec ge= of the council of europe thjorborn jagland had to give as spe=ch on terrosism to the security counsel. Last night I presented your arguments, re hypocrisy, he was shocked but loved i=.

Glad it worked. Hope that the s=eech was of some interest.

He is the head of the human rights court in strasbou=g. / former prime minister of norway. .. He=would be happy to have a dinner with us. . subj. =C2 drones. solitary confinement , death penalty ( europe does not have one , so if killing terrorist= is to be under an act of war, argument , then they, as enemies ,hav= war rights. ). tribalism, mafia, syria, ukraine, saudi, egypt. =A0 libya, . We have a great friendship. - I give him his financial ABC's class. he gives me my pragmatic =olitics lessons. fyi great similarity now as the old political=guard seem toreflect the patterns of the old long term=C2 investors, ( skills of . planning. executing . =A0 etc ) now confronted by media . and pressured to make quick decisions. ie behaving =AO like inexperienced short term traders. fyi I h=ve read a great number of language papers. many if not most, m=suse the concept of probability . making naive, erroneous uses of th= word , hence forming nonsensical conclusions. ( like the silly , life on =ther planets " calculation". probability needs repetition =nd symmetry, historical events do not have either ! )

Sounds like a most interesting person= And someone it would be very interesting to talk to. I presum= he spends time in NY. Hope we can work it out.

Would be interested in learning more =bout your critique of the use of probability in language work, mostly by computational cognitive scientists, as far as I know. I =80 ye written critiques of

it too, but on different grounds: failure to =ccount for what they are trying to show, or even to understand the issue.=C2 There are, I think, some notable exceptions, like the recent work of Charles Yang, one of Bob Berwick's student=.

I think you might try to plan on late september, ta=ing my apt and spending a few days with valeria in the city, A= it is the openiing of the UN general assembly , as well as the Clinton global initiative New york is rife with people with a= least influence, if not new ideas. . I, we. can organize man= fun interactions. my house becomes a respite for the select f=w, to take off their ties , and talk openly. You would be welcome to join as many create or participate as you prefer. =AO yangs work deals with language as signals . his relia=ce on Zipf like distributions is a good example of naive probablities. .=C2 empirically zipf appears. but cannot be derived from any of his or anyones elses to date. so somewhat misleading to suggest the&=uot; probililty of word , x appearing, " it is the =istake of frequency vs probablity, and careless common usage.

Valeria's not here right now,=so will have to check with her about late September. Really intrigui=g possibilities, and a delightful offer.

On Yang, I read his work quite differ=ntly. He does make use of word frequencies and probability distribut=ons, but as far as I am aware in pretty straightforward and innocuous ways. =A0 And he's quite sophisticated about these matters. Smart and int=resting guy. You might want to contact him directly.

I don't recall his using Zipf=E2 s "laws," but it wouldn't matter much. =A0 Mandelbrot showed back in the '50s that they were a statistical artifact, near meaningless. =AO I was, incidentally, surprised to see how he dealt with this result in =is autobiography. I think he called it his "Keplerian moment=" or something like that.

1.1 will wait on vale=ia. we can craft a fun few days

2, try this on but only if you get a moment , i know you =re busy

it appear to me that ""language" can be defined as the=C2 biological organizing principle that creates a shape spa=e. "coherent sentences " are defined as those that f=t on the shape. The projections on the sensory motors, allows commun=cation. . There are an infinite digital number of sentences.that do fit on the shape , but=orders of magnitude more, that do not fit.- to attempt a naive=representation, imagine a hemisphere, ( symmetric), =AO any continuous line drawn on its surface , is a sentence. =C2 there are infinite numbers of lines that can be drawn. however, try=ng to connect two points, directly without traversing the hemishpere =AO is also infinitely possible but most solutions need to leav= the surface. The principle that organizes the shape is NOT an input device. one can map inputs onto the shap= but it is not THE shape , ex, a hemisphere bowl in 3 =pace, analogy, one can put marbles in the bowl and they will map a p=th to the bottom. but the shape of the bowl . determines how f=st they move, and in which direction, . the shape of the bowl is the language= there is a shape for vision as well. = it exists without input, certain paths are more probable etc.

3. I will contact Yang

Interesting image, but I don'= see what it tells us about language.

The problem looks to me like this, ro=ghly.

Take, say, the human visual system.=C2 There's a genetic component that determines that humans will=have a mammalian and not an insect visual system, and much else. Same wit= other

subsystems of the organism — "organs," =80 modules." Language in particular. The technical name fo= this component, whatever it turns out to be, is UG. UG therefore de=ermines that certain systems are possible I-languages for humans, others are not. =1 presume that is what the "biological organizing principle =9D for language is. It's plainly not an input system, though=it determines possible input systems for human languages. I don =80 t see how we improve understanding by looking at it from this perspective.

A minor technical problem, not serious, has to do with distinguishing digit=l infinity from continuity, like continuous lines on the surface of a hemi=phere.

I think you'll find Yang inte=esting.

it is my failing not =ours. the old math requires numbers . too li=iting. ( we can put a metric overlay on later in the chain) i=agine a shape in real space. it is readily apparent if a line either fits on the shape or not . how=do you know. ? you compare the line with the shape. =AO your visual system allows the mental shape to either map onto or not =AO onto the shape in a coherent manner. the shape is not an input =AO device ,it is an object . the organizing principle of the shape is la=guage, the shape is a collection of grammars. line= on the shape are either coherent or not. coherent ones are le=itimate sentences .

yang is flexible in his use of the term probability.=. for example he in a number of papers refers to zipf as a probabiltiy dis=ribution. i have checked a number of his papers after your last remark, I think it is a mistake. he m=ans that after empirical measurement . for ex word frequency,=C2 . if ten times out of 100 the corpus has the word x. =AO then he describes the probablility of finding the word as 10 perc=nt . this is not correct. it is only the probablity of finding the word in the=frequency list . but he is very accomplished at mathematical m=dels.

hre

I follow up to the point where you wr=te "the organizing principle of the shape is language... =80 No doubt it can (partially) be described in language, but that's not what y=u mean.

Zipf's law is a rank-frequenc= distribution. And also meaningless, as Mandelbrot showed 60 years a=o. I hope Yang is clear about this. He surely knows.

1. dont you have any questions about money, . ? ? finance. . ? I owe you some knowledge .

2 .to say the shape can be" described " by language is redundant.

the "shape" is the metaphor for an n-dimentional object, it stands outside of time. as do grammars, but sentences do not, they require time. the shape is somewhat like a fitness landscape? contrasted with communication which also requires time dimension and biology that needs and uses energy. I suggest the mammal Ug is a subcategory of all UG.s and that as biology prefers redundancy. the other modules, ie vision are small distortions of it.

3. during that UN period I often give a "money 101 to world leaders who have in many case.. little knowledge of a subject to which they give many speeches and policy directives, as they only have experiences such as that of a general, a politician, in some instances a disk jockey, before having to run their country. I would love to consider some of what you thought was " fair ". with regard. allocations. if you were running the show.

1. if you would design a fair tax system. what goals would you suggest. I ye been researching how to start a new financial system for Zimbabwe. its now so broken it presents a clean petrie dish, exchange rate of a billion billion dollars equals one us dollar

2 berwick and yang. clever. evolution hunters, . not sure if question raisers

,sherman better

3 . taking sherman work . and my conjectures ug 's would be genetically created modules of "sense makers." structures that were able to separate sense from non-sense. I think there would be a ug for vision . smell etc and probably similar or connected in some way.

1 will do, by the way new housing starts were the highest in 7 years. the mortgage interest deduction cheerleaders, (not me). are thrilled.

2. i am willing to be convinced, as always

1 you are a treat and very much appreciate your non finance views.): 2 ehud barak will be with me for the weekend in ny. not sure where you are?

Marr, -try, probability, symmetry. entropy. it might look like computation but it is not. it might look like algorithm but it is not. the flip of a coin does not compute, have an algorithm or a mechanism. though it might look as if it does. it is not an input system, there is not mechanism driving the heads and tails towards equal numbers. , there is not nature looking to see what the previous results were and computing the next result. like your ug it is more of a miracle.

1.do you have any specific questions for him? he thinks its not going in the right direction. ie. bibi, not strong enough to make tough decisions. ehud trusts hamas more than abbas. I know you dont like telephones but we could set up a to=t exchange if you wanted to.

2. more important

I use my coin flip analogy often. ie. single cell=experiments, like looking through a microscope at my coin, measure its content it moment, its shape, all trying to figure out why the result after a long while is always the same -equal number of tails and heads. a consistent result. no algorithm, no computation. Why i am pushing you on this, is that i firmly believe that language needs a theory, cognitive science needs a theory, your minions and intellectual offspring are like bio engineers --they will be able to mimic some of the behavior, yes it is amazing but not interesting. you have thought long and hard and more importantly have seen what does NOT work. einsteins thought experiments led to truly remarkable results in physics. Im hoping that results like that can be achieved for biology.

Forty years ago, Israel was one of th= most admired countries in the world. Now it is most disliked. Forty years ago it was pretty clear, as I wrote at the time (and I was far=from alone), that those who call themselves "supporters of Israel=E2 are in fact supporters of its moral degeneration, international i=olation, constant conflict and

i will get you a response on israel. / =C2 2. what does amaze you? interest you? . 3/ =C2 we could put together some chomsky questions for posterity, =AO like hillberts , fermats etc. I am willing to fund a prize for solutions, Anonymo=sly if you prefer. .. I need to keep up your fun quotient.

The main questions that interest me a=e about origin of the language faculty, which, I think, created modern humans, the most unusual, nutty, and remarkable of all biological p=enomena. There are two problems that seem beyond reach: the origin o= elementary human concepts, which appear to be radically different from an=thing in the animal world; and the "creative aspect of language use," the phenomenon that astonished Galileo, D=scartes, and other leading figures since. The third problem has to d= with what we've been calling "the Basic Property"=of language: a recursive procedure that generates an infinite array of hierarchically structured expressions interpreted at the interfaces, pr=marily the conceptual-intentional interface, providing a "language=of thought." The most fundamental question here is to what extent =he Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT) holds, that is, to what extent has nature produced a perfect solution to the Basic Propert=, which underlies our creative capacities in language (and probably much e=se). That problem can be addressed, and has been, I think with some succes=.

Very generous proposal. Made go=d sense for Hilbert in 1900, given the advances of the past century. These enabled him to formulate problems of deep mathematical significance =n a form that was not too far from contemporary understanding.</=>

But my feeling is that the cognitive =ciences is nowhere near that stage. It's possible to pose ma=y narrower problems, and that's in fact what people work on from gra= school on to the limits of research. But understanding, I think, ha= probably not reached the stage where one can sensibly do what Hilbert did=

Others incidentally disagree =93 as is usually the case.

I understand the limitations of questions too far fr=m the boundary of contemporary thought but as you speak =ebrew. i will paraphrase the reason you should consider posing the q=estions now. -- If not now. when?

The third problem can be posed =93 though few will understand it. The first two can be posed but the=e is no known way to address them — the first for reasons that Dick Lewontin explained in his important paper on evolution of cognit=on (which those who write about the topic refuse to read), the second beca=se it reaches to issues that are total mysteries even in much simpler doma=ns — perhaps, though many don't to contemplate the fact, because of limits of human cognitive capacity. =AO Puppet and puppeteer, again.

There are lots of narrower problems that can be posed, but there are issues=of general import.

What was very special, maybe unique, about Hilbert in 1900 was the advances=in the field had reached the point so that questions had that miraculous c=mbination of being (1) potentially within reach and (2) of very great impo=t for the field of mathematics. That's hard to achieve.

Will think more about it — re=eating the Hebrew words to myself. Did you learn them as a kid in He=rew school?

Noam

but they also act as a guiding star. lets try.=C2 . no harm. I fear that without them ,the chances are sli=mer of merely stumbling upon the aha.