From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Mon Mar  9 18:32:53 EST 1992
Article 4045 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo
>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb26.203437.11927@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <450@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Feb26.172245.10210@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb26.183132.30181@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 20:34:37 GMT

In article <1992Feb26.183132.30181@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Feb26.172245.10210@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>
>>Of course there is. That's wy the distinction is universally held.
>>Consider:
>>   The boy kicked the ball to the girl.
>>   A monster pinned the prince to the wall.
>>
>>They have the same syntax, but different semantics. Now consider:
>
>  Excuse me, but in the context of the discussion, this is completely idiotic.

Same to you buddy. Lighten up!
>
>  Those two sentences are both stored on my computer at present.  And when
>I do a COMPARE, they do not compare equal.

Well this depends entirely upon what program you use to compare them.
If you simply compare them character-by-character, then of course thy're
not the same. If your program is more sophisticated, and can extract
more sophisticated strucutral regularities, you'll find they do have
the same syntax.

> If the have the same syntax but
>different semantics, this is proof positive that computers can represent
>semantics.


Bzzzz! Wrongorooni! No one ever said that syntax and semantics capture
the entire range of features. As far as I can tell, you set up a false
dichotomy, selected an arbitrarily obscure definition of one side ofthe
dichotomy, showed that the sentences didn't fit that definition, and
then declared the other side of the dichotomy to be the required answer.
Fallacies Fallacies. Let me count the ways.

>
>  If you want to say that computers are only capable of syntax you must have
>a much broader definition of syntax than your example shows.  You have to
>treat the Beethoven symphonies recorded on compact disk as syntax.  You have
>to treat the information the explorer satellites sent back from Io, which
>revealed the presence of volcanos as syntax, since it was completely
>encoded digitally.  You have to treat weather predictions coming from
>computer models of the atmosphere as syntactic information, even if they are
>more accurate than predictions made by humans not using the models.
>
>-- 
>=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
>  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
>  Northern Illinois Univ.
>  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------


