Xref: utzoo comp.ai:1142 sci.lang:1668 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.lang Subject: Re: Language Learning (anecdotes) Message-ID: <3048@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: 4 Dec 87 17:26:18 GMT References: <1117@uhccux.UUCP> <8300015@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 24 Summary: Stop the debate? Just switch the dial. In article <8300015@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu> goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >...[after long article discussing some issues] >In other words, I think the moral of this issue is that you cannot expect to >settle an issue that is several layers of abstraction below the level of your >observational apparatus. (In this case it might be more than "several".) In >a sense I'm saying: "Go back to the lab and let's look for other things we can >get a better grip on - this issue will have to wait until another day." > I don't think that this would be a very interesting newsgroup if there were no debates. The crystallization issue is interesting, and it merits intelligent discussion. The point is not to "solve" the issue, but to increase our understanding of it. You have a lot to say on a subject that you seem to feel ought not to be discussed :-]. I, myself, feel that we ought to know something about what we are testing before we rush into the laboratory to test it. I can't resist ending with one of Mark Twain's observations about adults in foreign language contexts: "In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language." -- =========== Rick Wojcik rwojcik@boeing.com