If you can distinguish, you can express: Galois theory, Stone--Weierstrass, machine learning, and linguistics

Abstract

This essay develops a parallel between the Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory and the Stone--Weierstrass theorem: both can be viewed as assertions that tie the distinguishing power of a class of objects to their expressive power. We provide an elementary theorem connecting the relevant notions of "distinguishing power". We also discuss machine learning and data science contexts in which these theorems, and more generally the theme of links between distinguishing power and expressive power, appear. Finally, we discuss the same theme in the context of linguistics, where it appears as a foundational principle, and illustrate it with several examples.