There is no such thing as intent. That's retrofitted. Meaning only emerges from the variations of task demands. We know this now from allocortex studies. Sure we can simulate meaning from our PFC, but that makes little difference if the simulation has zip to do with the action and mapping.
The real problem is where does the post-hoc nature of words interact with the world of actions? They're highly separable. In one hand we have conscious will created by words, on the other is the wordless world of memory integration, consolidation, cognitive mapping, planning. All thought is wordless, we know this as of 2016 in aphasia studies, the question is if the words are arbitrary, what we doing using them in place of thought? Are we dumb, insane, or just wiling to live in slumber using them to go nowhere? If you look around carefully, nowhere is where we're going, and fast.
Of course there is such a thing as intent. When you're hungry, you formulate a plan about getting something to eat, which you then execute. It's more correct to say that there is no such thing as a "statement". People don't go around declaring "The sky is blue.", "My dog's name is Zeus". People go around influencing the world to achieve their goals, including with language. When you say "There is no such thing as intent", this is less of a statement about the state of affairs, as much as an attempt to alter the reader's model of the world to align with yours, one that apparently doesn't include the concept of "intent". Same goes for all the statements I've made here. Language is an API for indirectly manipulating people's cognitive states.
There is no such thing as intent. That's folk science you're describing.
Thoughts aren't about things, they are things.
“We refute (based on empirical evidence) claims that humans use linguistic representations to think.” Ev Fedorenko Language Lab MIT 2024
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7415918/
btw the levels of folk science inhabiting engineering is tsunami. the whole field needs to be taught how to deal with the contradictions in scientific practice and discourse to get out of the vortex you've built for our species.
Just because I'm on Hacker News doesn't mean I'm an "engineer". In fact, my education is in linguistics, so the idea that we don't use language to think isn't novel to me (or relevant here). However, saying "there is no such thing as intent" is very strange. I've given you an example of intentionality in action, are you saying people don't act to bring about their desires? You seem to be refuting your thesis that "there is no such thing as intent" yourself by, for example, talking about your ideas here or having a startup. Which, I'm assuming, is trying to achieve something. That's intent by definition.
You're a linguist and you don't understand the difference between intent, a proposed state in brains in cog-science and intentionality, an arbitrary externalization? I find that impossible to believe a linguist doesn't grasp that distinction. And no, there is no such thing as beliefs, desire, intent as separate or even conflated states in brains. Start with Stitch eg Folk Science to Cog Sci the case against belief, and end up with that Brain—Cogntion Behavior Problem link above from Buzsaki. Study before you reply.
Probably you're not really a linguist, you're in a sub-field like NLP, generative or construction, which is only linguistics coded for engineers.
This is amateur hour in HN.
- I am using "intent" and "intentionality" in their everyday manner, which, ironically, would've been clear to you if you paid attention to my intent, rather than the "words" that you seem to loathe so. From Dictionary.com: intent — the act or fact of meaning to do something; intentionality — the fact or quality of being done on purpose or with intent.
- It's great that you mention Stitch, because what I'm trying to tell you is directly related to his theory as presented in e.g. Mindreading. What he terms "desire detection mechanisms" are what I'm referring to as our ability to discern intent, which is how you're able to make sense of other people's actions (whether verbal or non-verbal).
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Antibabelic, I think you're arguing with a prankster. Look at this user's comments history, all they do is write obscure non sequiturs and rail against some vague conspiracy of CS (that's computer science, they seldom clarify) and engineering.
It's either a troll or someone with problems. Since the username is "mallowdram" (melodram(a)) I'm leaning towards prankster.
The general confusion of that type of thing is trying to figure out if the person is an ass with some sort of a point or a troll with no point. If you're ever at a place where you're unsure of this you can generally be it's not worth the effort to figure it out.
The specificity of what they're trying to say and long Google Docs documents (apparently with their personal name in them) make me incline towards the other option.
Why would you waste time caring one way or the other?
These aren't obscure non-sequiturs, and the very obvious AI bubble is indicative of a culture of CS that traded complexity for bypassing the dark matter of language, which is not disputable in majority of linguistics sub-fields. If you can't discourse with it, then it's smart not to lose your lunch over it. Just move on.