From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!aunro!ukma!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!ames!olivea!uunet!csar!csar.uucp!kimhock Wed Feb 26 12:54:25 EST 1992
Article 4000 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!aunro!ukma!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!ames!olivea!uunet!csar!csar.uucp!kimhock
>From: kimhock@csar.uucp (Ng Kim Hock)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re:Semantic and Syntax
Message-ID: <kimhock.82@csar.uucp>
Date: 25 Feb 92 03:06:06 GMT
References: <1992Feb24.174823.15344@oracorp.com>
Sender: news@csar.uucp (Usenet Administrator at CSA Research)
Organization: CSA Research, Singapore.
Lines: 31

I have been trying to follow the arguments and exchanges regarding syntax 
and semantics. I was just trying to draw a parallel with some Mathematics 
and would like to seek your opinion on the problem.

Supposing I write a=b+c

	In Mathematics, this could be viewed from the point of view of syntax
	and syntactic rules

	i.e. I know that the symbol + is such that a+b = b+a
	     and I know that there is a 0 such that a+0 = 0+a = a etc.

Viewed from this angle, it would appear that a purely syntactic approach 
could solve certain problems and in fact when a person is asked to prove 
certain properties. I am wondering whether if a person who found the 
solution is deem to have understood the problem

Alternatively, we could associate the problem to the real world and try to 
imagine a quantity of something being added to another quantity to form a 
larger quantity. This is a more a Physical approach and really shows the 
semantic. 

On the other hand, one could argue that the physical semantic is only a 
particular interpretation of the syntactic relations and that the syntax
encapsulates something very general that can carry different semantics 
depending on how we wish to interprete it.

Do I make sense or am I way out?
--
Louis Ng Kim Hock
kimhock%csar@uunet.uu.net


