>No formal grammars, not even the ones I like
>to use, account for language in ways that I would consider even slightly
>realistic from a neurological viewpoint. They can't, because people can't
>make such models and see their consequences, hence such models have no
>analytical-conceptual usefulness. They can however be made in computational
>forms, to simulate language production, and probably will be some day. They
>will work, but no one will understand how they work.
>
>How, as organisms, we make meaningful behavior, and how it is useful to
>talk meaningfully about that behavior are matters belonging to quite
>different domains that we may not be able to usefully map onto one another.
>Computational simulations will show that such mappings are possible, but
>they will not be very enlightening for humans. They may be quite
>practically useful, however. This case may become the paradigm instance of
>a general intellectual shift in our future culture, that we will give up
>the project of explaining complex systems in simple, human-comprehensible
>terms, and be content with usefully simulating such systems for practical
>purposes. Like the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions, this may be
>Western culture's next big lesson in intellectual humility. No
>master-narratives, no masters. Just intelligent participants.
I like this very much and want to thank Jay for the clean formulation. But
I do wonder if the "no one will understand" point is not overstated or
directed toward a particular way of thinking about understanding. If we do
make a general cultural shift in the direction of reconceptualizing both
our world and ourselves in less Rationalisitic, more Complex terms will we
still regard understanding as a rationalistic concept? Will it not be more
likely that the sort of "understanding" that we already apply to our
everyday experience will suffice even if it is treated in a more conscious
way--as a recognizing the import of a pattern. There is a whole range of
things we say we understand when we "see the pattern." For instance, when
we see the break in traffic and dart across the street; when we distinguish
between sulky silence in a classroom and reflective consideration and act
accordingly. This sort of understanding has been either hugely intractable
or not even considered within the framework of rationalistic explanation.
And a large body of people always asserted that such an analysis was
inappropriate. What seems to happen in such cases is that folks, based on
their experience, see patterns, spin out their consequences of the pattern
completion and take action to shape the possibilities that this projection
offers. They see a gap in the cars and act to dart across the street in
order that they might enhance their possibility of meeting class on time.
But all that depends upon an intimate perceptual/action link to the
phenomena you are interested in. There are a lot of phenomena that we do
not have good access to because the time span is too long or short, or
alternately, the spatial extension is too small or large--or even that the
field is just too complex to track.
Simulations can bring these phenomena into a perceptual zone where the
pattern is recognizable and from which we could make good judgements about
action. It would seem to me that such "aided" perception of pattern is no
less understanding than any other perceptual/action couplet. I would like
to see traffic engineers regularly using some sort of StarLogo type
simulation to "see" the subtle dynamic consequences of having different
speed limits on a single stretch of road on the way that traffic locks up
at the intersection outside the building I work at. I doubt if the solution
to the problem is at the intersection but our current way of thinking about
it puts all the emphasis on solving the problem where we see it, in a time
frame that we can handle. (Light or no light, police direction of traffic
or not)
I would want to say that traffic engineers who simulated the larger
situation, ran different scenarios to get a feel for the dynamics and acted
partly on that "understanding" really did understand. Even if the
rationalistic explanation for their understanding was as opaque as my
understanding of my class as being reflectively (rather than sullenly)
silent.
Just a quibble, John
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John St. Julien (stjulien who-is-at udel.edu)
Department of Educational Development
University of Delaware