Knowledge Needs and Information Extraction: Towards an Artificial Consciousness

Chapter 8

Language Modeling

8.1. Issues surrounding language

The question of language is a three-pronged one. We find a philosophical question which tends to try to explain why human beings are the only species to express themselves using high-level language, and when this ability originated. Another more political issue is that of mastering the function of a language, to use it as an instrument of harmonization of exchanges within a nation and of regulation toward an international stage. The third issue relates to the explanation of cognitive phenomena and the impact of language in everyday life. This third issue is related to the two previous ones, but is more pragmatic, involving concepts of psychology, brain function, social interactions and modern technologies which can be used to create models.

8.2. Interaction and language

The role of language is certainly far more important than simple regulation, because it is necessary for sophisticated interaction between individuals. Interaction “between individuals” may, first and foremost, involve oneself, particularly given that – as we saw in Chapter 5 – a component of the personality is introversion; i.e. the absence of introversion is symptomatic. Introversion is accompanied by monologues, which begin to occur very early on in the development of an individual’s cognition after simple phonetic mimicry. Monologue uses language as a tool for internal communication to establish one’s ideas, express associations between concepts and ...