Is natural language a high-level programming language?

If the mind is a computer, then there must be something in the brain that corresponds to the low-level strings of data (the machine code) that computing mechanisms manipulate. This machine code provides the basic structure for everything that a computer is able to do. In electronic computers it is implemented in the flow of electricity across circuits. In the brain, it might be implemented similarly, in the flow of electricity across neurons.

Can you read this?

What exactly it means (or does) will depend on the computing mechanism in question, but even granted this information it is incredibly difficult (and time-consuming) for people to program in machine code. Because of this, programmers typically make use of a hierarchy of programming languages. Each language is an abstraction of those beneath it, eventually bottoming out in the machine code itself. A programmer will write code in whatever language s/he finds most accessible, and once s/he is done it will be translated into machine code by a compiler.

This is basically the plot of Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash...

Similarly, it seems likely that the basic code used by a computational brain could be incredibly difficult for us to decipher. Contrary to Fodor's fabled language of thought, there doesn't seem to be any reason why (at the computational level of description) the brain should operate on natural language. Nonetheless, there does seem to be an intimate relationship between the brain and natural language. We obviously produce language whenever we speak, and (perhaps less obviously) language can exert a powerful influence on how we think and behave. In a quite literal sense, it could be seen as re-programming the mind. So if the mind is a computer, then it might make sense to think of natural language as (among other things) a high-level programming language.

Note added 10.05.13: Apparently Fodor beat me to it. Piccinini writes that "Fodor likened human public languages to high level programming languages, and the human LOT to a computer's machine language" (2004: 387). I haven't found the original reference yet, but I think it's in The Language of Thought somewhere.

• Piccinini, G. 2004. "Functionalism, Computationalism, and Mental Contents." Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 34/4: 375-410.

Meaning is User Relative

The dominant paradigm in cognitive science and philosophy of mind is the computational theory of mind (CTM). In its simplest form this theory states that the mind is essentially a device that takes inputs, performs a series of operations on them, and gives us an output. This process is known as a computation, and it is also what the digital computer sitting in front of you does. This is obviously no coincidence, as CTM and computer science have developed alongside one another since the 1950s.

Cue hackneyed image of 'mind as computer'

One major criticism of CTM is that it seems unable to account for meaning or semantic content. Any given computational process can be fully described in terms of the symbols that it operates on, the syntax, along with the rules that govern those operations. Whilst we do bestow meaning on to the symbols that our digital computers operate on, that meaning appears to be entirely relative to us, the user. It does not appear to be inherent to the symbols themselves, and in fact there is an infinite range of interpretations that can be given to any set of symbols (Pylysyhn 1986: 40). The worry is that if the mind is a computer, there would be no (inherent) semantic content to our thoughts.

This might turn out to be correct, which would mean that our mental states only mean anything relative to an observer. My mental representation of the blue sky outside of my window might be interpreted entirely differently by an alien scientist scanning my brain. To it, that mental state might simply represent a complex calculation, or a nostalgic yearning for the Sirius system. This, in fact, is a major plot point in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where (SPOILER ALERT) the Earth turns out to be a giant supercomputer designed to calculate the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything - the answer to which I will not reveal to you at this time.

This was the first attempt.

So what about my own interpretation of that mental state as representing a blue sky? That would have to be relative to me, as the 'user' of my own mental computer. What exactly this means, or if it even makes sense to say that I could be interpreting my own mental states, gets very complicated, very quickly. Aside from anything else, it raises questions about the nature of consciousness and the self, both of which are extremely contentious topics. Still, I see nothing wrong with saying that semantic content might be entirely user-relative, both in the case of the digital computer and that of the brain-bound one.


References

• Adams, D. 1979. The Hithchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Pan Books.
• Pylyshyn, Z. 1986. Computation and Cognition. MIT Press.