Re:

Great term. Can I plagiarize it?

I guess one could say that a lion and a gazelle have competing powers, but it somehow seems misleading. All living systems? How about Valeria and I furnishing our apartment together (I became an expert on rugs)? Or Morris and I writing a book together?

Interestingly, I finished off the brisket and pretty much the corned beef but am saving the pastrami. Great mustard and bread too. The only problem is that the dog goes berserk unless I give her little pieces. Must have Jewish genes.

Thinking about it. Keep realizing that I'm not Hilbert, and linguistics isn't 20th century math. The exciting problems I can think of are either too far from current understanding, or too theory-internal for the general significance to be easily perceived.

Meanwhile, ran across a nice definition of "power," thinking about an earlier letter that you may have forgotten. From Hans Morgenthau: Power in the international context is "that untamed and barbaric force which finds its laws in nothing but its own strength and its sole justification in its own aggrandizement."

five questions in language. the chomsky challenge. . 50k in prizes. ? use the Internet to reach the brightest minds ? why not?

Every act is is power in some small way. But the sense relevant to those who write about power -- Morgenthau, Russell, etc. -- is coercive power. Like my telling my dog right now that I can't play with her.

How about putting an animal with a human auditory and visual system in the same room as a human infant -- a chimp for example. And see if it can learn speech or sign the way the infant does. Acquisition of speech and sign are remarkably similar. And we know that even with huge training efforts, which the infant doesn't need at all, results for the chimp will be zero. But interestingly, the facts as usual have no interest to the data-processing usage-based enthusiasts.

Even if far it could act as a North Star . , power has many properties those might me some . Is the ability to care for many Power? Is the ability to find new medicines power .

How about a challenge that says put a thing in a room and see if can learn a language .?

I will now credit you with the derivation. Do a new term. - Dubes Data usage based enthusiasts

You had the power to move the furniture she had the power to tell you when and where :)

It's your term as I see it Chomsky vs the dubes

Living systems need energy hence they FEED . Plants vegetables all try to protect themselves . Skin poisons , etc. I believe the best benefit to cost ratio relies on Deception And to know the mind of the predator or prey , language is the tool . It allows a shared understanding of mental objects , mental states and mental actions .

patient 8 11 16 pos ng.pdf

Sexist. How do you know that she didn't move the furniture while I told her when and where.

Hobbes vs. Adam Smith. Hobbes: life is a war. Smith: the fundamental human motive is sympathy (including his term "invisible hand," invariably misunderstood.

Reminds me of a quip of Quine's about origin of language: it was invented so that we wouldn't just hit each other.

I concede sexism. and she does open the door for you. so i stand corrected :)

trying to guess the mind state of another is i believe part of cognitive development. sympathy makes it sound sweet. unless you mean manipulation and exploitation of the weaker also qualifes as "sympathy " I think that this desire to know the state. gets carried away and people see mindstates in inanimate objects . or pets. even a blind or deaf person attempts to have a shared understanding to either protect themselves or FEED. I spoke yesterday to trivers. who said you shared an interview with him and Seed magazine. ( i was the money behind , it failed )