How We Learned to See Language
Evolutionary theory, linguistics and information theory each illuminated different aspects of language without reducing it to one…
Language
Information and Meaning Are Not the Same Measurement
How much information a message carries and how meaningful that message is to a person are different questions. Mathematical communication theory can measure specific aspects of uncertainty and representation without measuring human memory, context, or value.
Language Through a Systems Architect's Eyes
Protocol thinking clarifies syntax, encoding, convention and error handling, and it shows why successful communication requires some shared…
What Language Really Is
Human language combines sound or gesture, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, memory, social inference and cultural learning. Meaning depends on shared contexts as well as formal…
Where the protocol Analogy Breaks
Network protocols try to minimize ambiguity. Human language routinely exploits ambiguity, metaphor, implication and incomplete information because speakers infer one another's…
The Philosophical Problem Hidden Inside Language
Language lets humans externalize models of absent worlds: memories, plans, laws, mathematics and imaginary…