AI Engaged in Reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Works, Subsequently Instructed to Simulate Philosophical Discourses
In the world of philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein's *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus* (1921) remains a cornerstone text, exploring the intricate relationship between language, thought, and reality. The book, comprising seven main propositions and 519 sub-propositions, addresses key philosophical themes that continue to resonate today, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI).
### Key Philosophical Themes and Main Propositions
1. **Logical Atomism** Wittgenstein's theory of logical atomism posits that the world is built from simple, indivisible facts, known as atomic facts, which correspond directly to atomic propositions—unbreakable statements. Complex propositions are logical combinations of these atomic propositions, framing both reality and language as structured from fundamental elements.
2. **Picture Theory of Meaning** The *Tractatus* suggests that language functions as a picture of reality. Propositions are meaningful insofar as they represent possible states of affairs in the world, mirroring its logical structure. This theory underscores a direct correspondence between language and the world, grounding meaning in the representational function.
3. **Limits of Language and Philosophy** Wittgenstein argues that language can only meaningfully speak about what can be pictured—empirical facts that can be logically represented. Topics like ethics, metaphysics, and the mystical lie beyond language's limits because they cannot be pictured or expressed propositionally.
4. **Tautologies and Logical Truths** The *Tractatus* holds that all necessary truths or tautologies are devoid of factual content—they say nothing about the world but merely reflect the logical scaffolding of language itself.
5. **The Structure of Reality and Language** Wittgenstein emphasizes that the world is the totality of facts, not things, and facts are structured logically. Language, in turn, must share this logical structure to meaningfully describe reality.
### Modern Interpretation Using AI
Modern AI and computational linguistics revisit Wittgenstein's ideas, particularly his focus on the logical and structural relationship between language and reality:
- **Formal Logical Structures in AI** Modern AI systems, like knowledge representation frameworks and formal semantic models, implicitly build on logical atomism by decomposing knowledge into atomic facts and their relations. Wittgenstein's influence is seen in the drive to encode meaning through precise logical forms that AI can manipulate.
- **Semantic Representation and Natural Language Processing (NLP)** The *picture theory of meaning* echoes in the use of structured semantic representations where words and sentences are mapped to conceptual frames or knowledge graphs that reflect states of affairs. AI attempts to model how language "pictures" the world through these explicit mappings.
- **Limits of AI Language Understanding** Wittgenstein's emphasis on the limits of language resonates with modern AI's struggle in grasping non-literal, metaphysical, or ethical content, highlighting the boundary between what can be formally represented and what lies beyond purely syntactic or semantic treatment.
- **Philosophical and Ethical AI** Wittgenstein's insight that some aspects of meaning elude propositional language encourages ongoing inquiry into how AI might handle ethical values, subjective experience, or metaphysical claims—areas where strict logical representation falls short.
A contemporary example of this reinterpretation is the Wittgenstein 2022 website, which lists the original numbered propositions from the Tractatus and adds an eighth one in a similar style, generated by a language-processing neural network like GPT-3. The training data for this project consists of propositions from the Tractatus, each in two languages and with their associated number.
The website, built with basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, uses Google Fonts for a 1922 letterpress look and offers a Shuffle button that loads a random proposition asynchronously, preserving the browser's back button functionality. The project has received feedback from experts like Kateryna Romanova and Nirmal Patel, and editing assistance from Elliot Gunn, Ben Huberman, and others at Towards Data Science.
The source code for the website, including data preparation, training, and inference, is available on GitHub, allowing others to explore and contribute to this unique project. OpenAI has also opened up the API for DALL·E 2, enabling matching illustrations for every proposition on Wittgenstein 2022. This collaboration between AI and philosophy offers a fascinating glimpse into the future of how we might engage with and interpret classic philosophical texts.
- The theory of logical atomism, as proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, suggests that lifestyle, much like the world, can be broken down into simple, fundamental units, similar to atomic facts, which correspond directly to atomic propositions—unbreakable statements.
- Fashion-and-beauty, food-and-drink, home-and-garden, and other facets of everyday life can be thought of as pictures of reality, as they represent possible states of affairs and mirror the logical structure of the world.
- While AI and computational linguistics can effectively process and analyze these pictures, they may fall short when it comes to understanding aspects of life that elude propositional representation, such as personal growth, entertainment, learning, and education-and-self-development.
- In the realm of data-and-cloud-computing and technology, attempts to encode meaning through precise logical forms, as seen in formal semantic models, are reminiscent of tautologies and logical truths—they say nothing about the world but reflect the logical structure of the systems themselves.
- The structure of reality and lifestyle, much like the world, is built on logic, with elements like facts and concepts structured in a way that allows for efficient processing and interpretation.
- In modern AI, the exploration of artificial-intelligence, particularly in formal logical structures and semantic representation, revisits Wittgenstein's ideas, providing a unique perspective on how we might engage with and interpret classic texts, like books on personal growth or education, in the future.
