From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!darwin.sura.net!gatech!ncar!hsdndev!husc-news.harvard.edu!zariski!zeleny Mon Mar  9 18:34:10 EST 1992
Article 4162 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!darwin.sura.net!gatech!ncar!hsdndev!husc-news.harvard.edu!zariski!zeleny
>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Reference,Angels,InfoDaemons,& so on
Message-ID: <1992Feb29.100628.9308@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 29 Feb 92 15:06:27 GMT
References: <1992Feb25.182526.12698@oracorp.com> <18595@castle.ed.ac.uk> <kqtmppINNjj9@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 50
Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <kqtmppINNjj9@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> 
silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber) writes:

>In article <18595@castle.ed.ac.uk> 
>cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:

CM:
>>On the other hand, I think it remains true that what a program does is
>>to transform some input data into some output data, and that this
>>transformation can only be purely syntactic. This seems to me to pull
>>the rug out from under the "English reply". Anyone care to comment?

Yes.  Boden mistakenly assimilates pragmatics to semantics.  Procedural
statements of programming languages clearly have a pragmatic effect (think
in terms of an S-R cycle); yet they are bereft of semantic meaning.  Note
that this is yet another example of elementary confusion of standard
meaning of technical terms.

ES:
> It's like medieval disputes about how many angels can fit on a pinhead.
> When theory and practice have advanced another few hundred years,
> these arguments will be viewed either as angelic anachronisms OR as
> the foundations upon which a race of thinking,feeling,living 
> non-biological machines was built.

Yet another possibility: when the AI crowd recognizes the fact that the
theory of meaning has been advancing over two and a half millenia,
contradicting at every step the idiotic confusion made by its robotic
proponents, it will sulk off into the depths of oblivion that await every
eschatological research program.  Philosophical stone, anyone? homunculi?

ES:
>				     ... excuse me ... the King's men
> are in the courtyard collecting head taxes, I have to go now, ...
> the crusades are on you know!

You know, Eric, you really amaze me: all these attempts, and still nothing
meaningful to say.  What a pity.

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
:                                                             so     :
: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
: 872 Massachusetts Ave., Apt. 707                                   :
: Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139           (617) 661-8151            :
: email zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu or zeleny@HUMA1.BITNET            :
:                                                                    :
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`


