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Position Paper: The Unreliability of Language - A Common Issue for Knowledge Engineering and Buddhism

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Knowledge Graph and Semantic Computing: Semantic, Knowledge, and Linked Big Data (CCKS 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 650))

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Abstract

According to the studies of Kurt Gödel and Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of formal languages and human languages are unreliable. This finding inherently influences the development of artificial intelligence and knowledge engineering. On the other hand, their finding, i.e., the unreliability of languages, was early discussed by Gautama Buddha who founded Buddhism. In this paper, we discuss the issue of the unreliability of language by bridging the perspectives of Gödel, Wittgenstein and Gautama. Based on the discussion, we further give some philosophical thoughts from the perspective of knowledge engineering.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Alfred Tarski extended the results to more general formal system five years later. We refer the readers to Tarski’s undefinability theorem [7].

  2. 2.

    The details of diagonalization can be found at [2].

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

    Zhangquan Zhou & Guilin Qi

Authors
  1. Zhangquan Zhou
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  2. Guilin Qi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhangquan Zhou .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang University, Zhejiang, China

    Huajun Chen

  2. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA

    Heng Ji

  3. Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Le Sun

  4. Google Research, Mountain View, California, USA

    Haixun Wang

  5. Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Tieyun Qian

  6. East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Tong Ruan

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© 2016 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Zhou, Z., Qi, G. (2016). Position Paper: The Unreliability of Language - A Common Issue for Knowledge Engineering and Buddhism. In: Chen, H., Ji, H., Sun, L., Wang, H., Qian, T., Ruan, T. (eds) Knowledge Graph and Semantic Computing: Semantic, Knowledge, and Linked Big Data. CCKS 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 650. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3168-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3168-7_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-3167-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-3168-7

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