From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon Mar  9 18:33:23 EST 1992
Article 4091 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb27.220431.29491@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: Thu, 27 Feb 1992 22:04:31 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.
>
>  Those two sentences are both stored on my computer at present.  And when
>I do a COMPARE, they do not compare equal.  If the have the same syntax but
>different semantics, this is proof positive that computers can represent
>semantics.

Do you *honestly* believe that COMPARE detects semantic differences?
What response does it give to "bachelor" and "unmarried male", I wonder...

>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.

Well, let's see, I can treat satellite data from Io as digitally
encoded music instead, and play it on my CD player.  Which interpretation
is correct?  The answer is, of course, that it depends on what you want.
All of the above examples *do* provide purely syntactic information, which
is then *interpreted* by humans.  Heck, maybe if you treated the Beethoven
symphonies as satellite data, *they* would indicate Io volcanoes...

- michael



