That’s an interesting solution to the problem of translation (how do I know if I’ve got the meanings of the words right?) you’ve got there: just measure what’s going on in the respective participants’ brains! ;)
There are two reasons why you might not want to work at this level. Firstly, thinking about translation again, if I were translating the language of an alien species, their brain-equivalent would probably be sufficiently different that looking for neurological similarities would be hopeless. Secondly, it’s just easier to work at a higher level of abstraction, and it seems like we’ve got at least part of a system for doing that already: you can see it in action when people actually do talk about meanings etc. Perhaps it’s worth trying to make that work before we pronounce the whole affair worthless?
That’s an interesting solution to the problem of translation (how do I know if I’ve got the meanings of the words right?) you’ve got there: just measure what’s going on in the respective participants’ brains! ;)
There are two reasons why you might not want to work at this level. Firstly, thinking about translation again, if I were translating the language of an alien species, their brain-equivalent would probably be sufficiently different that looking for neurological similarities would be hopeless. Secondly, it’s just easier to work at a higher level of abstraction, and it seems like we’ve got at least part of a system for doing that already: you can see it in action when people actually do talk about meanings etc. Perhaps it’s worth trying to make that work before we pronounce the whole affair worthless?