From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!cronkite.Central.Sun.COM!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!rug.Eng.Sun.COM!silber Fri Jan 31 10:26:40 EST 1992
Article 3231 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:3231 sci.philosophy.tech:1985
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!cronkite.Central.Sun.COM!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!rug.Eng.Sun.COM!silber
>From: silber@rug.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: les decrets du roi de soleil
Message-ID: <koboi4INNa3n@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 28 Jan 92 23:07:48 GMT
References: <1992Jan26.010642.24883@smsc.sony.com> <1992Jan26.014607.8073@husc3.harvard.edu> <6523@pkmab.se> <1992Jan28.122457.8161@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
Lines: 60
NNTP-Posting-Host: rug

In article <1992Jan28.122457.8161@husc3.harvard.edu> Mikhail Zeleny,
 sa majeste, le roi, a decrete:
>
Decret du roi au sujet de la DENOTATION:
----------------------------------------
    ( Le signe du roi:  Dieu et mon Doigt )

If, on one hand, one identifies the neural pulses as purely denotative
signs, ones that refer without expressing, one would be forced to postulate
a causal relation in virtue of which these signs denote, stipulating that
this causal relation is itself entirely immanent in nervous activity, in
direct contradiction to the fact that our language, allegedly founded
solely on such nervous activity, has no trouble referring to objects and
phenomena that occur outside of the latter.  For, on one hand, if an entity
can be said to refer, the mechanism of such reference must be taken as
being wholly within the provenance of the entity in question, to the extent
that we are justified in ascribing the reference to the said entity, rather
than to the extrinsic factors of its relation to its environment; on the
other hand, once we reject solipsism, we are forced to infer an external
reality of potential denotata, unconnected to our putative subject in any
manner that can be wholly subsumed by it.

Decret du roi au sujet de la CONNOTATION:
-----------------------------------------

On the other hand, should one assume that neural pulses are connotative
signs, which refer by virtue of expressing an intensional meaning, then
such meanings, by the above observation, must be entirely captured in the
physical states of the brain.  Now, as I have argued elsewhere on the
Putnam thread, it's well known that intensions, once admitted, bring in a
transfinite hierarchy thereof; in other words, on the connotative theory,
reference depends on the grasp of (and, under the reductive materialist
assumption, physical embodiment of) meanings, which depend on meanings of
meanings, which in turn depend on meanings of meanings of meanings, and so
on.  For at each intensional level it is reasonable to interpret the
concept as yet another sign, asking what is the factor in virtue of which
it succeeds in referring to an object; in other words, it does us no good
to argue that in practice a brain or a computer only uses a finite initial
segment of the intensional hierarchy, for the question of the nature of
reference will only reappear on the highest admitted level thereof.  On the
assumption that the brain, like a computer, is a finite state automaton,
this amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of materialist semantics.  Moreover,
as is well-known, classical model-theoretic semantics is incapable of fully
characterizing reference, and ipso facto it is incapable of sufficiently
constraining any derived operational criteria that purport to implement the
AI notion of success of reference.  Thus, if I am right, AI projects of
creating a machine capable of signifying independently of its creator,
surely a prerequisite for machine intelligence, are doomed to failure.

--- fin de decrets ----------------------------------------------------

In DENOTATION, as I understand the royal decrees,
A is linked to B, formally under the influence of an exterior causal-relation, 
wheresas in CONNOTATION the linking function is , itself, expressing meaning.
The insurmountable problem of infinite recursion when traversing intensional
links has been propounded by H.R.H.  Why cannot this problem be dispensed with
by appeal to a concept of "delayed computation" within which meanings may
be embedded in potentially infinite recursions, which in practice, the
cogitator is never called upon to carry to a conclusion?   
The computation always stops at a sufficient intermediate result.


