Posted by andsoitis 1 day ago
1. Norvig is correct that observation and fact/data collection are necessary for science. However, Chomsky is correct that the ultimate goal of science is to determine the principles governing something. Ergo: you need the first to do the second. The intellect abstracts from source data, but nothing is in the intellect that is not first in the senses.
2. Chomsky here is uninterested in things like speech - he only cares about the underlying syntax. But syntax - expressed and instantiated in matter - is known through speech, and probabilities presuppose an underlying determinate syntax. Ergo: a complete science of speech is end-to-end, from the "reading" or interpretation of noisy data through syntactic processing all the way through to expression.
3. Chomsky focuses heavily on internal generation. Norvig points out that interpretation is a separate, highly practical challenge. Figuring out what someone means in a noisy, ambiguous world is an exercise in prudence which involves weighing contingencies and probabilities to arrive at the most likely truth. Of course, this can only be done against a presupposed acceptance of the function of speech which is to communicate meaning and what is true (hence why lies work and why they are an abuse of speech). Probabilistic reasoning is still reasoning. It's reasoning in the face of incomplete information (against a backdrop of presuppositions) which is a component of prudential reasoning.
Note that the base epistemology of science is inference to the best explanation, not "truth".
It's sort of like criticising Galileo's putative experiment about dropping two balls from the leaning tower of Pisa by pointing out that a feather indeed falls slower than a iron ball.
do you want a cracker -> you want a cracker?
I think he is dumb -> * I think is dumb
It's a lazy dismissal from someone who doesn't know the relevant facts.