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>From: mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott)
Subject: Re: Table-lookup Chinese speaker
Message-ID: <1992Jan22.161342.17781@cs.yale.edu>
Summary: It's crazy
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References: <1992Jan20.182835.5307@spss.com> <1992Jan21.191924.18205@aisb.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan21.182524.7880@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1992 16:13:42 GMT
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I can't pass up a chance to agree with Mikhail Zeleny

  In article <1992Jan21.182524.7880@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@widder.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
  >I can't understand how this thread ever managed to get so far without
  >considering a very basic problem, that of context dependence of indexicals,
  >including pronouns, demonstratives, anaphora, and tensed verbs.  Given this
  >consideration, it is easy to see that the truth-value of the predicate "X
  >is a meaningful Chinese sentence" depends not only on the sentential
  >antecedents of X, but also on the concrete non-linguistic context of the
  >entire discourse.  

All we have to do to defeat the table is allude to some fact that is
true now and known to the average human, but not always true.  E.g.,
the fact that earth is inhabitable.  Or, better yet, pick a fact that
might be true at some times but is not true now.  Suppose we begin our
dialogue thus:

   "Isn't it sad how all life on earth was wiped out a few years ago?"

and continue with other absurdities.  The lookup system will give
itself away by responding with things like:

   "Perhaps we can find a way to cause life to re-evolve."
    or
   "Oh, well, life was overrated, in my opinion."
    or
   "Tell me more about life on earth."

whereas a normal person would say,

   "Are you out of your mind?"

If this example seems too ridiculous, take something of a narrower
scope, like

   "Do you think the king of the United States will succeed in having
his daughter succeed him?"

   or even

   "Do you have the time?"

Perhaps the thought experiment is supposed to involve having the table
get updated every few seconds to reflect changes in the world.  If so,
one must begin to inquire about the agency that is doing the updating,
and what its (rather stressful) mental life might be like.

[All these points were made a few months ago, by the way, and some of
the examples above I have stolen from the people who made them up.]

                                             -- Drew McDermott


