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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Semantic Conventions (was re: Searle and the Chinese Room)
Message-ID: <1991Dec13.013107.6496@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 91 06:31:05 GMT
References: <1991Dec10.213907.17512@psych.toronto.edu> <am0TcB3w164w@elrond.toppoint.de>
Organization: Dada
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In article <am0TcB3w164w@elrond.toppoint.de> 
freitag@elrond.toppoint.de (Claus Schoenleber) writes:

>Maybe "meaning" is association between a (more or less) complex symbol and
>some environmental event. Now, can't that be done by a sufficient complex
>syntactical rule system? There is nothing said about whether the acting
>machine is intelligent or simulates, it would behave like an intelligent
>system.

How would the "meaning" (environmental association) of the explicans, i.e.
"a sufficient complex syntactical rule system" be given, except by more
complex syntactical rule systems, etc.?  So sorry, but meaning is still not
syntactical.

A qualification: a trivial semantics may be given by autonymy, or
self-denotation.  Just carry everything you need to denote with you
wherever you go.  A synecdochic form of this convention was used by the
courts of ancient Rome; see the legal code of Gaius for more information.

A less trivial semantic convention may be estabilished by using the Ariadne
technique: connect each name-token to its denotation with a thin thread of
ballistic nylon.  If you wish to determine the denotation, just follow the
line.


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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