If syntax isn’t semantics, will we abandon syntax one day to tackle the first person perspective?

Question

Say by building experience machines once we learn how brains better work.

If syntax isn’t semantics, we will never write down a depiction of the first person subjective perspective, where semantics abounds.

There will never be a book or formula. And science has always operated on those mediums and formats.

So what’s the end game? We start conveying semantics by causing certain first person experiences?

This seems like a scientific, philosophical, and practical question/possibility.

The first person perspective is so antithetical to this traditional method of science communication. I’m equating syntax to not just formalisms but possibly all methods of writing down languages. Didn’t Einstein say as much? That the moving spotlight of the present where time flows and is localized is a subjective first person quality, and outside science.

So rather than give up, why not think science can adapt, can change its method of communication to encompass the subjective and semantic parts? If syntax isn’t semantics, why are we relying on syntax?

And if this can’t be done. Do we ever bridge the gap between syntax and semantics?

I mean seriously. What’s the future look like if we can formalize all day yet leave out half of the details? Does anyone put out possibilities for change of method?

Answer 1

Answer

If syntax isn’t semantics, why are we relying on syntax?

Because simply put, we are not psychics. Communication requires a medium and a message, and a message has to be made out of organized medium. The element in that process is called a grapheme. The moment one has more than a single grapheme, it then becomes important to develop a system to organize those graphemes; hence, syntax. Word order inversion can signal the intention of interrogation. Punctuation can capture nuance.

If syntax isn’t semantics, will we abandon syntax one day to tackle the first person perspective?

One doesn't need syntax for the first-person perspective, but for communicating it to others. The only way to abandon syntax is to somehow directly transfer experience from mind to mind, to collaborate, presumably with some sort of special hardware that allows shared-first-person experience, and in that case, the private has become public.

The bottom line is any system of communication, including signals that goes beyond the rudiments of instinctual or intuitional signaling will require syntax. Written language does, spoken language does, and signed language does. Syntax is nothing more than learning that facilitates the organization of message in communication.

Lastly, it should be noted that semantics is a direct result of interpreting syntax. They are a dichotomy. From WP:

Within functionalist approaches, research on the syntax–semantics interface has been aimed at disproving the formalist argument of the autonomy of syntax, by finding instances of semantically determined syntactic structures.

and

In formal semantics, semantic interpretation is viewed as a mapping from syntactic structures to denotations.

In short, "signals, signs, and words mean" and or more compactly "graphemes mean". There is simply no divorcing semantics from syntax.

Answer 2

Why should there be an 'end game'? That is not characteristic of science, or of minds. Instead there are continuous improvements in capacity to situate ourselves in our experiences, so that we can achieve our aims.

Is syntax all that runs through science? Consider Popper's critique of scientific method in regard to hypothesis generation - that they cannot be recursively enumerated from syntax, but involve creativity and inspiration which need not be systemised, and we can reasonably expect cannot be.

Psychology addresses the subjective, but does so scientifically by generalising, & using statistical methods. It takes a top-down approach, but aims to reconcile it's understanding with bottom-up knowledge from fields like neuroscience.

I can only think implicit to your question, is understanding qualia. I would argue the supposed 'inneffability' of qualia is challenged by the Private Language Argument, and the understanding of higher consciousness as the harnessing of intersubjectivity.

I think of the Zen account of The Flower Sermon, for an example of semantics going beyond syntax. When a Zen practicioner asks 'Who are you?' they want a sponteneous direct in-the-moment response, that speaks to the answerers being as a process happening now, relationally. This echoes the summary often given of Zen practice:

A special transmission outside the scriptures,

Not founded upon words and letters.

By pointing directly to one's mind,

It lets one see into one's own true nature and thus attain buddhahood

In 'Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch'an Buddhism' Peter D. Hershock introduces the idea that successful Zen practice is about cultivating 'intersubjective virtuosity', fully entering into understanding the experiences of others by being able pick up and put down ideas and experiences of the self. Obviously this is not science.

Qualia as usually defined are intrinsically beyond systemising so beyond science. But I would suggest this Zen methodology can still be used to gain skillfulness in attending to direct experience, and helping to bring others also to do so, in ways that can help us to live well and dispell pseudoproblems.