Remembering the Future

I started as a computational linguist, but soon got disappointed at the complete inability of computational models to account for real, meaningful human language. I studied cognitive linguistics and cognitive science and experimented with connectionist modeling of language, but eventually have found these, like the old AI programs and parsers to be semiotically inadequate. Adaptive (evolutionary, epigenetic) robotics is a step in the right direction, but like all computational models it can only simulate rather than instantiate meaning, which now I am convinced is a property of living systems only. Accordingly I have moved further and further away from machines and towards biology and culture in the study of children, different languages and evolution.

Topics: meaning | language | evolution