Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: IQ is not static, genetic differences inconsequential.
Message-ID: <4481@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 1 Aug 89 15:35:54 GMT
References: <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 32

From article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>, by cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.edai   031 667 1011 x2550):
>...
>A great deal of linguistic experimental evidence contradicts you here.
>Studies of human ability to understand and generate complex sentence
>structures show strict limitations on our ability to handle levels of
>abstraction.

Bull.

>There are many linguistic constructions capable of abitrary
>levels of recursion, and the level at which we "lose the thread" varies
>markedly with the type of contruction. ...

What does recursion have to do with abstraction?  Relative clause
constructions are arguably recursive, but the more restrictive
relative clauses you stick onto a noun, the more specific the
reference.  So, if anything, the more recursion is exploited, the
less the abstraction involved.

Abstract things are hard to understand, but just because a thing is
hard to understand, that does not make it abstract.

For constructions that make us "lose the thread", maybe you're
thinking of center-embedding, as in:

	*That that the pig squealed surprised John annoyed Mary.

But the unacceptability of such examples just shows that this sort
of subject embedding is not, after all, "capable of arbitrary
levels of recursion".  Anyhow, it has nothing to do with a failure
to grasp abstractions.
				Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu