Re: [Corpora-List] QM analogy and grammatical incompleteness

From: Rob Freeman (lists@chaoticlanguage.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 2005 - 02:08:50 MET

  • Next message: Dominic Widdows: "Re: [Corpora-List] QM analogy and grammatical incompleteness"

    On Monday 19 December 2005 19:42, John F. Sowa wrote:
    > Rob,
    >
    > The uncertainty principle is a quantum mechanical
    > result. It has nothing to do with relativity.

    Yes, I think Dominic was mistaken in suggesting differently. I am willing to
    believe there might be some common ground in terms of the ability to know all
    things at once, but I have yet to see convincing evidence of that.

    > In any case, I believe that the analogy with QM is
    > about as useful as most analogies: it might suggest
    > some new ideas, but if you push it too hard, it tends
    > to break down in the details.

    Where does the QM analogy with grammar break down?

    In particular do you think there is no limitation on knowledge analogous to
    the Uncertainty Principle of QM, applying to the simultaneous
    characterization of text in terms of grammatical qualities defined
    distributionally? Can you explain why?

    -Rob



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