From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc Tue Jan 21 09:26:37 EST 1992
Article 2827 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
>From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Semantics of thoughts
Message-ID: <cs5oeB1w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 92 13:32:11 GMT
References: <1992Jan16.164646.24041@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Lines: 97

pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:

> Richard Yee ((yee@cs.umass.edu) says:
> >
> >The difference between formal and semantic processing is profound: In
> >the former case, basic symbols cannot *represent* (literally
> >re-present) anything... to the processor.  In the latter case, they
> >can.  Given a symbol, two semantic processors must agree as to its
> >formal properties, but they may differ, to a greater or lesser extent,
> >as to its associations or content.  In semantically processing true
> >re-presentations (as contrasted with formal tokens), each step holds
> >the possibility of interpreting the basic symbols---using them to form
> >connections with subjective information.  This can yield inferences not
> >derivable solely from the intrinsic properties of the manipulated
> >symbols.  The point is that such interpretations and inferences are
> >available *within the processor itself*.  A formal symbol processor has
>            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >no such leverage with regard to its basic symbols: all additional
> >interpretation and inferencing, i.e., all additional *semantics*, must
> >lie elsewhere (e.g., in an external agent's use of "wishful mnemonics"
> >:-)
> >
> It's all very well, but how has the processor acquired such abilities? Are
> they in-bred (hardwired) or are they learned (through previous exposure to
> the said symbols)? If the latter, then it is syntax again. If the former,
> then there is no reason why it couldn't be hardwired into a computer.
> Are there other possibilities, inaccessible to computers?
> One could of course speculate about mind's ability to tap into ethereal 
> (platonic) realm of ideas (which computers are not subtle enough to do)
> but this smacks of mysticism.

Your argument is itself a good example of a "semantic" rather than
a "logical" argument.  You are using the word "syntax" to mean
anything that is formal, explicit, and completely enough
determined so that it can be done by a machine, no matter how fine
or course the "granularity."  In that sense as soon as what are
usually called the "semantic" aspects of a text are sufficiently
explicated so that they are formalizable, they are then
redesignated as "syntactic."  So if semantics is in principle
specifiable, then it can be relabeled syntax.  That would be a
matter of convention and either usage -- retaining the term
"syntax" for the course grained forms of a language and the term
"semantics" for the finer grained distinctions, or calling any
formalizable aspect "syntax" -- would be reasonable.  It would
depend upon what the speech community decided to do.

I think semantics is in principle formalizable, although we won't
know until it is done.  A formalized semantics will not, in my
opinion, look anything like the "formal semantics" of today. They
have the cart before the horse in the sense that they are trying
to characterize whole utterances as true of false before they
understand the parts.  That would be like characterizing a text as
"literary" or "mundane" without examining the components and
aspects of a text that would make it one or the other, although I
suppose it could be done to some extent, with _Hamlet_ recognized
as "literary" and the current issue of _National Inquirer_
regarded as "mundane."

For a start, semantics is inherently relativistic and any semantic
"meaning" has to be _related_ to a _context_.  Consider the
following sentence (_sentence_, not "proposition"): "Emerson's
mind was second-rate at best."  Is that sentence "true" or
"false?"  In a paper on the history of Kantian transcendentalism,
appearing in a philosophy journal and tracing the major movement
of ideas up to the present, it would be true.  In a paper on the
New England Renaissance appearing in a journal of American
history, it would be false (since Emerson was one of the leading
luminaries of that particular historical moment, if not the most
important).  A semantic analysis has to take into consideration
whether Emerson is being compared to Kant and Husserl or whether
he is being compared to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow.  I think this relativity is part of every semantic
construct (since every semantic construct -- seme or semanteme --
probably involves two things: a pole in some opposition -- hot vs.
cold, up vs. down, etc. -- and a distance from that pole).  So in
terms of the polar opposites excellent vs. inferior, the term
"second-rate" takes its meaning in any particular context from
whatever content is mapped onto the two poles of "excellent" and
"inferior."  There may be names of some persons that appear in a
footnote of the paper on the history of transcendentalism whom we
should judge to be inferior -- maybe their contribution was so
confused and garbled that it hurt rather than helped the
development of the transcendental idea -- but within their
university, where they were just another hack professor, they were
outstanding in their understanding of the problems of students,
guided their students into appropriate courses and career choices,
and were even intellectually above the average for their
colleagues in the faculty lounge.  These professors aren't even
"second-rate" in the history of transcendentalism, but are
"excellent" as professors.  All that needs to be built into a
formal semantic analysis.

--
Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Midtown Medical Center |    {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
Atlanta, Georgia       |
(404) 881-6877         |


