Dwight Longenecker Not Knowing What Computers Are, and Not Answering a Challenge On It

1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Fable and Allegory, 2) Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Dwight on Definition of Fundies, 3) Dwight Longenecker Not Knowing What Computers Are, and Not Answering a Challenge On It, 4) With Dwight on Fundies, Again, 5) One item on Dwight, related to Teen Marriages, 6) Was Dwight Ever Outright Heretic? If So, it is Here I Blamed him, 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica (again) : Dwight Longenecker and Bildungsroman

I

Me to Dwight Longenecker

24/03/15 à 16h22

Any answer will be blogged on this one

Just so you know in advance, and no bad surprise to you.

The Terminator – Will the Machines Take Over?
March 23, 2015 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2015/03/will-computers-take-over-from-humans.html

"I’m talking about all the things human beings do that really have no use at all. Here’s a list:"

Where is:

• Translating
• Evaluating an argument
• Evaluating linguistic style and influence from another language
• Evaluating a definition
• Understanding what oneself is actually doing?

Computers can't do those things.

Google translate can give sth which has most words, in short sentences even all words, if lucky, in common with a real translation.

But it cannot translate, since it cannot relate to meaning. Translating means:

• grasping meaning of text x in language y
• reproducing same meaning as text z in language w.

Google can exhange words from word pairs and even treat syntaxemes like words. But when a Spanish poem about the Blessed Virgin contains the word "graciosa" and Bing (competitor of Google) gives meaning after most common use of "gracioso, -a", namely "drôle" in the French translation, you might perhaps understand what a computer can never grasp : they have no grasp on meaning.

How about your saying what you should have said, namely that Wozniak lacks a proper grasp of metaphysics and even has lost some of the grasp on meaning. He idolises his products and has become like his idol in that precise respect.

How about trying to tell him R2D2, C3PO, Terminator, Tobor, Scrameustache, CHAPPiE (and I might add a computer from HHGG too, the one that answered 42, without realising that 14*3 from Abraham really is the answer) - all of these are either in film or text impersonated by human minds who unlike what they are portraying actually do have a grasp on meaning?

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Extreme Badness of Google Translate (Copy Pasted both texts)
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/11/extreme-badness-of-google-translate.html

[Note, title does not mean Google Translate is generally extremely bad, but that this badness was extreme for Google Translate. However, this extreme may be counted on as regularly occurring.]

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Extreme badness of computer scanned text retype
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/11/extreme-badness-of-computer-scanned.html

basic english blog : This will be. Easy.
http://writingthisinbasicenglish.blogspot.com/2008/09/this-will-be-easy.html

basic english blog : I was wrong.
http://writingthisinbasicenglish.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-was-wrong.html

[was : blog readability test, is :] The requested URL could not be retrieved
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx

See what I mean?

Hans Georg Lundahl

Not answered, so far.

II

Me to Dwight Longenecker

31/03/15 à 18h09

et lux non loqui or lumen non loqui

In a FB group called Latinitas, yesterday, I was confronted with the question how to translate the phrase "et lux non loqui" into English.

I suspected it might have become as garbled Latin as it was by the fact of being a google translate from another language.

So, I tried the English phrase:

"and the light not to speak"
in the English left box of a google translate
and find in the Latin right box:
"et lux non loqui"

Google translate for phrase
consulted at 18:02 Paris time, Tuesday holy Week
https://translate.google.com/?hl=fr#en/la/and%20the%20light%20not%20to%20speak

Mystery resolved, as far as content was concerned.

Someone had wished or prayed for someone to get yadayada "and light not to speak". Like in demanding a sense of what I gave the Latin dictionaries as "homeritatem" (omertà in original).

Someone has also taken the trouble to get this phrase into Latin.

THEN someone (else? or same?) had posted question about meaning of "et lux non loqui" in Latinitas (which is a closed group, so only group members saw this).

I gave the answer yesterday, I also made the connexion with demanding or praying for "omertà". In pretty Classic Latin (if you do not count using "homeritatem" as a total barbarism). I mentioned someone had been hoping I get something "et lucem qua non loquar" or "et lucem ut non loquar", I might even if I had continued gotten into "et lucem non loquendi". But it was definitely idiotic as far as Latin is concerned to trust the translate on "et lux non loqui".

Today I wanted to get the discussion (anonymising the merely private persons in discussion) onto my FB mirroring blog.

It had disappeared, apparently someone had more omertà than I had.

Now, apart from the question if I (known to be a Latinist) could be the guy asked for omertà, this illustrates the point I made in an earlier letter: computers have no grasp of meaning.

Feel free to reply, but feel sure there is no omertà either asked or offered about this correspondence. If I take the trouble to debate with you (not that I mind debating, but even debating gets tiring if one is woken up at too early hours after eating too well in the evening before), I want for that trouble the unquestioned right to use the discussion on my blog - which is of course requited. You can use it on yours.

The scenario of Terminator is not an imminent danger, it is an impossibility. That is the point of my previous letter, as of this one.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Not answered, so far.