From mikevdg@gulik.co.nz Thu Feb 17 11:14:32 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:17:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from genamics.blastula.net ([205.214.85.184]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA:24) (Exim 4.34) id 1D1r6d-0005mv-Cw for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:14:32 -0800 Received: from [203.184.10.250] (helo=gulik.co.nz) by genamics.blastula.net with esmtpa (Exim 4.43) id 1D1r6b-0007Yi-3A for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:14:30 +1300 Message-ID: <4214ED23.6010205@gulik.co.nz> Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:14:43 +1300 From: Michael van der Gulik User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040216 Debian/1.6.x.1-10 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: learning lojban for computer science? References: <13d.cf1d6c6.2f43ac1b@wmconnect.com> <4213B40B.5080304@mcihispeed.net> In-Reply-To: <4213B40B.5080304@mcihispeed.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - genamics.blastula.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - chain.digitalkingdom.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - gulik.co.nz X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: X-archive-position: 1149 X-Approved-By: jkominek@miranda.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: mikevdg@gulik.co.nz Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners ethan wrote: > Hi- > On the main lojban site the software section doesn't seem to have > extensive software. I was under the impression that lojban and loglan > were partially created with an eye towards human computer interaction. > Is this true? If so, is there a reason there is not more software? Is > there some fundamental problem that prevents this from happening? Is > it worth learning lojban if my main interest is computer science? > Hi Ethan. Lojban has a YACC grammer (http://www.lojban.org/en/publications/reference_grammar/chapter21.html). There are parsers out there to parse and syntax-check lojban. Lojban is based on predicate logic, just like Prolog but a tad more complex and complete. Hypothetically, it would be possible for a computer to understand the semantics behind a lojban sentence and draw conclusions from it. There are some very very useful words/structures in lojban: "ko", "mo", "ma" and "xu". These would cue the computer to actually do something - e.g. "ko" is an imperitive, making that sentence a command. I'm interested in Lojban because of those two facts. Prolog uses a simple backtracking algorithm to search and draw conclusions. By using Lojban instead of Prolog (the raw Lojban would need to be normalized, perhaps to horn clauses), and then improving the search algorithm to use perhaps an evolutionary algorithm combined with a pattern-matching neural network, I could create an artificial intelligence that would be able to evolve and learn continuously. However, that's a long way off. Mikevdg.