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Article 2402 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Reasons
Keywords: intensionality, agency, causation, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
Message-ID: <2yDHDB3w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 24 Dec 91 22:36:12 GMT
References: <1991Dec23.185045.6898@husc3.harvard.edu>
Lines: 44

zeleny@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
> From this comment and others, it appears that your problem is a failure to
> understand the difference between identity and dependence.  The
> implementation of a program in a physical system *depends* on the
> systematic semantic determination of the former, i.e. on the interpretation
> of the syntax of the language in which it is written; it also depends on
> the systematic pragmatic determination of the same, i.e. in relating its
> illocutionary structure (procedure calls) to the physical processes within
> the computer.  Both, taken together, constitute its implementation.  Both
> require conscious agency, per my argument elsewhere.

As soon as we get into illocutionary (or performative or just
plain imperative) sentences or speech acts, we are in an area
where "formal semantics" with its reliance on "truth values" seems
less clearly applicable.  What do you take to be the status of the
procedure calls made by the program?

On December 20 you wrote to Eric Silber:

>For all your big words and occasional wit you understand not a whit of this
>discussion.  A "fundamental, hardwired symbol/interpretation machinery in
>the brain" will not, by definition, transcend the syntax of the "language"
>of brain processes.  The fundamental difference is between semantic
>interpretation and syntactic paraphrase.  I have covered this point a month
>ago, and feel quite disinclined to reiterate my arguments.  Nor am I
>prepared to repeat the elementary distinction between syntax, semantics,
>and pragmatics for the sole benefit of the reading-impaired.  As say the
>French, I've other cats to flog.

I can sympathize with that, but here where we are at the heart of
the matter, disentangling the syntactics, the semantics and the
pragmatics of the program in the computer seems potentially
productive.  But I'm not in any hurry.  If you need to study for a
test I can wait a few weeks.  But don't you think that a
syntactics that includes illocutionary sentences, and maybe even
exclamatory ones, is a richer tool to work with _in_ _the_
_computer_ than one with the implied restriction to assertions or
propositions that have a truth value?

--
Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Midtown Medical Center |    {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
Atlanta, Georgia       |
(404) 881-6877         |


