From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!ncar!noao!arizona!arizona.edu!NSMA.AriZonA.EdU!bill Tue Jan 21 09:26:28 EST 1992
Article 2809 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: recipes
Message-ID: <1992Jan16.153122.2430@arizona.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 92 22:31:20 GMT
References: <5949@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan12.214251.21761@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> 
 <DIRISH.92 Jan14103326@jeeves.math.utah.edu> 
 <1992Jan14.202806.29986@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <DIRISH.92Jan16121959@jeeves.math.utah.edu>
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
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  Okay, look.  When you speak of a "recipe", there are three things
you could conceivably mean:

	1) A piece of paper with marks on it.

	2) A string of symbols from some finite alphabet.

	3) A set of instructions for manipulating foodstuff.

  (1) is a physical object, nothing more.  (2) is a syntactic object.
(3) is a semantic object.  In ordinary usage the three meanings are
mushed together.  When someone says "Burn that recipe!", they are
using (1).  When they say, "Ignore the last sentence of the
recipe!", they are using (2).  When they say, "How many eggs
does the recipe call for?", they are using (3).

  It's a bad example.  It's confusing and it causes pointless
arguments.  Please find a better example.

	-- Bill


