dwong@zgov03.dec.com.UUCP (10/26/87)
>Please note that it is Turing claiming Chinese "attempts" to have an >enumerable infinity of symbols. ... >Chinese cannot succeed at having an enumerbale infinity of symbols. It >can only "attempt" to have them. Unless you "go down a level" and >consider "things that make up" Chinese symbols "the symbols." Then >there must be a finite number pf them. Does anyone know if this is true >about Chinese? Somebody may already have replied to this ahead of me but anyways, let me first congratulate Peter Berke on his correct deduction. It sure is true about Chinese. Ancient Chinese writing WAS composed of a finite set of symbols and that set of symbols do exist to this day. It's just that instead of writing those symbols linearly, they have been written two-dimensionally, thus a Chinese symbol is more of a two-dimensional word. Problems with the writing today is that in the course of two ... three thousand years, there have been many additions, subtractions and the like. Contemporary Chinese writing is going in for a 'shorthand' version of these words and this will probably obscure the original two-dimensional word more. Lastly, there is no enumerable infinity of symbols. Obviously, any language must be reducible to a finite set of primitive symbols. An infinity of symbols infers zero information content per symbol. You cannot distinguish between 99999999999999999 and 99999999999999999999 mainly because you can't count at a glance, but it is simple to aribitrarily assign 'values' to 17 9's and 20 9's which can be distinguished more easily. In a two-dimensional sense, in finite paper space (but perhaps not on Turing's tape !?!?!?), one would probably come out with a blob of ink. Lastly lastly, not all Chinese know all Chinese words but because of their composition of these 'primitive symbols' and associations with other 'known words', an educated guess can be made. This occurs in English commonly too but I get this feeling that it is more easily done in Chinese because of the symbolism of the words. Take for example the word "electronic", could be deduced if the word "electron" or "electric" is known. Likewise too in Chinese. ************************************************************************* DISCLAIMER: ALL OPINIONS DISCUSSED ARE STRICTLY MY OWN AND DO NOT REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF MY EMPLOYER OR ANYBODY WHO DOES NOT WISH TO REFLECT MY OPINIONS. *************************************************************************