Maybe there are miracles, but I think more prosaic approaches yield rich results in domains like vision (Marr's main concern) and language. Like some of those I've mentioned. I don't see how to progress in other ways. From: jeffrey E. [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 10:20 PM To: Noam Chomsky Subject: Re: Re: 1 you are a treat and I very much appreciate your non finance views.): 2 ehud barak will be with me for the weekend in ny. not sure where you are? Marr, , -try, probabilty, , symmetry. entropy. it might look like computation but it is not. it might look like algorithm but it is not. the flip of a coin does not compute, have an algorithm or a mechanism. though it might look as if it does. it is not an input system, there is not mechanism drivning the heads and tails towards equal numbers. , there is not nature looking to see what the previous results were and computing the next result. like your ug it is more of a miracle. On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:54 PM, Noam Chomsky < > wrote: I wouldn't take the term "mechanism" too literally. It refers to whatever is taking place in the brain. For some, as most of those in the Nowak group, it means neural nets. For Gallistel, it's processes internal to the cell. Useful to look at these matters in terms of Marr's three levels: computation, algorithm, mechanism. From: jeffrey E. [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:46 PM To: Noam Chomsky Subject: Re: Re: 1 will do , by the way new housing starts were the highest in 7 years. the mortgage interest deduction cheerleaders, ( not me ). are thrilled. 2. i am willing to be convinced, as always 3. my admittedly naive point is that "mechanism" ,I believe ,is the wrong concept. driven in error, by the machine -computer analog since the early 1900s . instead think of probability, it is not a mechanism , 4 EFTA_R1_01323491 EFTA02348956

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:05 PM, Noam Chomsky > wrote: 1. Not a trivial matter. I'm not the best person to ask. I'd suggest contacting people who've really thought seriously about these issues, like Robert Pollin, a fine independent economist at U Mass Amherst 2. Sherman's speculation is an interesting extension of recent discoveries about conservation, deep homologies, regulatory circuits, and other elements of what's sometimes called "the evo-devo revolution." It remains to be seen whether anything can be done with it. I think you underestimate the contributions of Berwick and his students, including Yang. 3. The idea that there is a "ug" for vision, language, etc., seems to be essentially what Randy Gallistel calls "the norm in neuroscience," quoted in the paper on modularity that I sent you. And yes, they're certainly connected, at least at the level of cells, and presumably well beyond. These are live and significant research areas. These "central modules" do not have input or output, but they are accessed by input systems and in some cases, like language, by output systems. That seems a fair picture of the rough cognitive architecture. I don't follow the rest. It's true that work on human language uses as evidence what is available, namely performance. And much of the work unfortunately is fascinated by the droppings, just as in other fields. But there is some work that seeks to discover the mechanisms, as discussed in the papers I sent you. From: jeffrey E. [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 7:52 AM To: Noam Chomsky Cc: valeria.choms > Subject: Re: Re: 1. if you would design a fair tax system. what goals would you suggest. I ye been researching how to start a new financial system for Zimbabwe. its now so broken it presents a clean petrie dish, exchange rate of a billion billion dollars equals one us dollar 2 berwick and yang. clever. solution hunters, . not sure if question raisers , sherman better 3 . taking sherman work . and my conjectures ug 's would be genetically created modules of "sense makers. " structures that were able to separate sense from non-sense. I think there would be a ug for vision . smell etc and probably similar or connected in some way. in previous emails I have been referring to "shapes" as a metaphor for those structures. shapes do not have an input /output . a failing of the computational analogies. let me try this , a cell 5 EFTA_R1_01323492 EFTA02348957

membrane , has a shape, it separates inner from outer, it is easy to see what is inside or out. the shape of the membrane is determined solely by a probability distribution. nothing more. The tons of works on spoken language seem in vain to try to make of the mechanism from a minuscule sampling of the combinatorics . silly. in the elephant and the blind man story , they are not even close to touching the elephant they are fascinated by its droppings. On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 12:28 AM, Noam Chomsk > wrote: I wouldn't dare to run the show for money 101, but I'm sure I would learn a lot by sitting in. It's true that grammars stand outside of time, a fact that many linguists and psychologists don't understand. There are suggestions of something like a "universal UG," though not couched in just these terms. Notably Michael Sherman's theory that a universal genome appeared at about the time of the Cambrian explosion, and all forms of life are minor variants of it. From: jeffrey E. [mailto:[email protected] anailto:[email protected]> ] Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 12:06 AM To: Noam Chomsky Subject: Re: Re: 1. dont you have any questions about money, . ? ? finance. . ? I owe you some knowledge . 2 .to say the shape can be" decribed " by language is redundant. the "shape" is the metaphor for an n•dimentional object, it stands outside of time. as do grammars , but sentences do not, they require time. the shape is somewhat like a fitness landscape? contrasted with communication which also requires a time dimension and biololgy that needs and uses energy . I suggest the mammal Ug is a subcategory of all UG.s . and that as biology prefers redundancy . the other modules, ie vision are small distortions of it. 3. during that UN period I often give a " money 101 to world leaders who have in many case.. little knowledge of a subject to which they give many speeches and policy directives , as they only have experinces such as that of a general , a politicitain, in some instancees a disk jockey, before having to run their country. I would love to consider some of what you thought was " fair " . with regard. allocations. if you were running the show. On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 11:13 PM, Noam Chomsky cc wrote: 6 EFTA_R1_01323493 EFTA02348958