Chomsky
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Has anyone here ever emailed Chomsky? Apparently after his assistant filters out insults and shitposts, Chomsky spends hours a day answering emails. He'll answer almost anything, unless you're just asking him about something he's already gone over in some book or speech that you could easily research. I once emailed him asking him about his views on prescriptivism vs. descriptivism (couldn't find anything about it online) and got a response the next morning. Seems like a nice guy. Probably only has a few years left, so I'm glad I got to talk to him while he's still around.
ITT: Discuss your past experiences with Chomsky and/or his books, speeches, etc.
I want to ask him about artificial intelligence but I am not sure about the approach
>>7738422
Everything you've said is true. Chomsky is an excellently nice guy. We're kind of pen pals it's nice
Yup, and he's a dismissive prick. He's also an arrogant moron about a lot of things that an intellectual of his stature should REALLY know a lot better than he does. And I say this as someone who agrees with him almost 100% on obscurantism and Lacan and Zizek.
Something happened to him. He went up his own ass in the 90s and never came out.
I emailed him a research idea, never heard back. He probably only answers emails that are short to read.
>>7738422
I asked about his ideology and the fuck never answered.
Mein Gott!!
>>7738422
He is a pretty cool guy. I emailed him once about the Occupy movement and posted it here.
Shortly after my exchange with him the interplay between Sam Harris came out. At the tail end of their conversation Sam asks if he can post the private exchange publicly, and Chomsky said that it was fine but also a bizarre form of exhibitionism.
Now I realize that I had unwittingly broken an unspoken pact between myself and the old professor via posting our short dialog on this board.The shame is too much to bear.
>>7739949
I seriously want to do this right now. I believe I have an original contribution to make that connects his theories on grammar to the way we perceive all kinds of musical structures and have just made a breakthrough in my own ability to understand poetry that I believe will allow the various differences in aesthetic taste people have regarding any art work with a beat structure to be related to and explained in terms of the various levels of the Chomsky grammar hierarchy.
I'm writing up notes right now and want to know what you think the reason why he didn't respond was.
I also strongly agree with his political views as well.
>>7739114
I emailed him before and his response was helpful and not at all like his responses to Sam "BTFO" Harris
I've reported him to the FBI on several occassions. From what I've read he is a commie and should be deported to Canada or Russia
>>7740004
You need to go to grad school and pursue aesthetic studies. I believe the reason Chomsky didn't reply is because he is quite busy, and doesn't have time to think through it and write up a response.
>>7739997
Sudoku yourself. It is the only honourable thing to do Desu.
>>7740021
This.
>Chomsky compared the political environment that’s allowed Trump to flourish to the 1930s, when the U.S. was in the Great Depression. “Objectively, poverty and suffering were far greater,” Chomsky said. “But even among poor working people and the unemployed, there was a sense of hope that is lacking now, in large part because of the growth of a militant labor movement and also the existence of political organizations outside the mainstream.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/noam-chomsky-donald-trump-fear-219723#ixzz419XJ97oO
Even Chomsky knows what's up.
>>7738422
Chomsky is an old brainwashed shitbag who does nothing useful whatsoever. He's a fucking bum and leftist. Hopefully we all sometime see him burn alive.
>>7740227
>Chomsky is an old brainwashed shitbag who does nothing useful whatsoever
Qualify this please.
>>7740217
>TFW even he realizes our new overlord and saviour President Trump.
Can't Stompsky the Chomsky
>>7740275
no, he doesn't
Read the article shit head
I'm proposing to behead Chomsky and stone all his kins to death. What do you think of the idea guys?
>>7740308
Learn English first, it'll definitely help you in court.
>>7740298
Nah, the articles proves Chomsky is a Trump supporter.
>>7740312
What court, you dumbfuck? And why would I learn English when I can already speak it?
>>7740321
Evidently you don't. Kin is already a collective noun; you don't need to pluralize it.
>>7740331
typo
>>7740335
I believe you
>>7738459
He's talked about this several times. His position is that its all statistics and no intelligence. He mentions some animal learning experiments, like the crows solving problems ones, and says we have no real idea how intelligence works.
He likes using the waggle dance of the bees as well, citing we can't explain how the bees do it, meaning how their brain works to produce the complex mechanism which communicates distance, direction etc.
In interviews he will say something like, If you park a camera to look outside your window and record for 2 weeks, you might get a good predictive model of what the weather will be like, but you're not really saying anything about how weather works. It's just a statistical approximation, which he believes won't work in the case of animal or insect intelligence, let alone something so complex as human intelligence.
He's pretty against the singularity, hard AI, statistical approaches to learning etc. Mostly because his belief is that the capacity of language is an innate genetic human trait like developing 5 fingers on each hand and foot, so it must be explained in a discrete way. And of course for Chomsky, language is intelligence, thinking and the seat of all that is human.
>>7739997
Probably just exhibitionism in the case of Harris because he would be revealing himself in an embarrassing way - most neutral observers would read the exchange between the two and conclude Chomsky blew Harris the fuck out.
>>7740057
>Is it about self-similarity in aural mediums?
Not specifically, though it is related somewhat. What work are you familiar with in that area? I've just started reading through this:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=xQIynayPqMQC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9#v=onepage&q&f=false
It seems that the perception factor of this approach to structural understanding has not been a topic of serious inquiry, and that's what I'm mainly developing my theories around.
>>7740351
Thanks, that helps
>>7740557
He's really conflicted about the issue, because his work on Context Free Grammar in the 50s and 60s really paved the way for most modern AI research. That is a structuralist approach over a semantic approach. This basically killed sematic linguistics, which was a subset of philosophy up to that point, and started the revolution towards modelling, various computer languages, monte carlo methods.
Most of the work was done at MIT, and it's really thanks to Chomsky doing the pivotal work with Chomsky hierarchy and formal languages.
We would have gotten there anyway, but he definitely made it easier and faster. In his view, all of the work was wasted on application and methodology, and we are not much closer on understanding mechanism or structure than we were in the 50s.
He's also open to the idea that it's beyond our capacity to know. Eg. there is a biological limitation on the human brain, just like you can only run so fast or jump so high, maybe you can only grasp so many concepts or discover so much knowledge. And it could be that self-referential knowledge, especially about how thinking works, is beyond our capacity to discover or understand. I don't think he believes that, but is open to it as a possibility.
So if it's beyond our capacity to know about ourselves, creating superintelligences is basically a non-sequitor to Chomsky. He sees the work as a gradual progression from explaining simple things (difficult, has not been done) to explaining complex things like humans.
He also doesn't believe in the Mind Body problem, rejecting dualism, saying it's all Body or Physical, then saying nobody knows what that actually is. It's just the things we observe, measure, experience.
Should be noted that his views are pretty controversial regarding most things. In academia he is conservative and believes in a rigorous method for describing biological things, where now most research is statistical modelling, simulation and heuristic approximation. And obviously politically he's anarcho-syndicalist during a time when the world is shifting away from human labor and towards automation and mechanisation of the work force.
You really should pick up some of his books, it's difficult to summarize his views. Most people in related academia think he's wrong, but are thankful for his pioneering work in the 50s and 60s, which helped build their fields. Some hate him for killing sematics though. Syntax vs Sematics is a dualism not even Chomsky could escape, it will probably go on long after he is dead and forgotten.
>>7740540
It's been established that it has a neurological basis, however, past that in perception I'm not quite sure. I know about fractal criticism in literature and use it extremely often, though I use it to study archetypes and other elements in the story, not necessarily perception in musical and aural aesthetics. But from what I do know, this is an under-studied area, so any contribution helps, although it sounds like you'll bring up a ton of innovation not yet seen in academia. Apply for grad studies, anon. I'm serious, you could go far with this especially since academia seeks theory which completely overhauls the way something is currently established.
>>7740759
I'm starting to seriously make plans around this, especially with the developments I started making a week ago. Where previously I had experienced 2 distinct levels of perceptual potential, which was extremely interesting but seemed impractical to explain or theorise about, last week I experienced a third distinct layer, which filled in most of the holes and weakness of my previous understanding and greatly expands the potential predictive and explanatory power of my theory. It has allowed me to make sense of past conversations I've had and things I've read about other people in ways my older conception didn't quite account for.
>>7740816
If you don't want to do graduate school, try to email professors from universities in your area, if they like the idea they'll probably work with you on it. Good luck anon.
>>7740873
I actually have extended family in Holland who is both a professer of psychology and lover of music (he gave my family a CD of his daughter playing Bach organ works when he visited a number of few years ago). I will try to get in touch with him, along with professors from my undergrad studies. I really hope I can make something out of this.
>>7740227
Anon is an old brainwashed shitbag who does nothing useful whatsoever. He's a fucking bum and coward. Hopefully we all sometime see himleave the board
>>7740217
>Chomsky has contributed to Bernie Sanders’ campaigns in the past but said he would “absolutely” vote for Clinton over the Republican nominee if he lived in a swing state.
>>7741146
That's the smart thing to do, 4 years Shillary > 20 years conservative supreme court.
>>7738422
no, but once i emailed a russian guy who took pictures of ants in silly poses a copy of a short story I wrote about an ant, and he replied. it was neat.
here's one of the guy's pictures.
>>7741243
Agree
>>7741346
i have a few times before, but sure. really nothing special, just a fun little story.
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?82106-The-Ant&p=1296960&highlight=#post1296960
here's the reply from the photographer.
Poor, poor AntOn!
Probably he had to shoot not with pistol, but with ant acid from ass (as ants usually do)
Kind regards
--
Andrey Pavlov
fucking hilarious, really.
>>7738422
>I once emailed him asking him about his views on prescriptivism vs. descriptivism
Could you summarize his reply?
>>7741365
holy fuck I'm dying
>>7741420
right? dude seems awesome.
>>7741423
this kind of thing reminds me of why I use 4chan. There is light in the godforsaken shithole after all.
Thank you so much, anon. I love you and your Russian friend.
>>7741427
heh, i'm just glad someone else found the whole thing as funny as i did, honestly.
>>7741414
He said descriptivism and prescriptivism are merely different concerns. Descriptivists are concerned with science and don't consider the subject under their control, just like every other field of study. Prescriptivists are concerned with legislating behavior.
That was roughly how he phrased it, suggesting he's not a fan of prescriptivism. I asked whether he thought prescriptivists might have ulterior motives (ie. thought control). He said their motives vary. His last reply was pretty short, which made me think he was kinda annoyed. I didn't continue the conversation.
>>7741433
Thanks.
>>7740227
le angry internet man
>>7738459
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kICLG4Zg8s
>>7742144
>bigotry towards an ideology
>>7742155
Go look up the definition of bigotry, mongoloid.
>>7742162
>intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself
>those
>implying that ideas are people
Go look up the definition of bigotry, pleb.
>>7742179
>implying a man isn't simply the composition of his beliefs
>>7742162
Max niggotry there. As if they will follow any 'laws' no matter how loosely defined.
>>7742162
>Words have only one definition each.
ayy
