Ok: Chomsky. He was of the symbolic representation of knowledge
era which paralleled with the growth of the early mainframe
digital computer era. Wouldn't have had one without the other.
First generation AI. Chomsky. All a part of it. Chomsky's
symbolic representation and concepts and DETAILS of universal
grammar were revolutionary for their time and COMPLETELY
OVERTOOK LINGUISTICS to this very day. Even though there is no
Language Processor in the brain. [he was analogizing to an inner
computer that does not actually exist], nevertheless, 50 years
of Linguistics are OWNED by Chomsky. Zero competition 'til the
late 1970s and even then, rather weakly. George Lakoff was one
competing theorist who Chomsky beat in the 60s handily and send
Lakoff in 15 years of obscurity. Lakoff had the metaphorical
representation rather than the symbolic. Much different. Anyway,
even though Lakoff and other competitors in Linguistics have
been gaining slow footholds in the world of Linguistics, Chomsky
is still #1. All that being said: a) It's an model ready for
moving into the computational linguistics realm and away from
general linguistics. as it's less and less representative of
ACTUAL cognitive processes in the brain. b) Chomsky's foray into
conspiracy theories has made him a bit of a crank. c) No
question he's a smart dude but his product was his work in
linguistics. The rest is Chomsky the man who is part
philosopher, part political analyst but not at the level he was
as computational linguistics. Just because you're good at one
thing, doesn't make you good at other things. Just see Hawking.
'nuff said. == ...and... I just realized why I don't like
sports. I read academic movements in the same way other people
follow sports. Wow. That's my sport. ugh. I guess I do like
sports. F*ck.
