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!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Mon Mar  9 18:34:59 EST 1992
Article 4239 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Reference (was re: Multiple Personality Disorder and Strong AI)
Keywords: Housebreaking your dogma
Message-ID: <469@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 92 20:44:09 GMT
References: <1992Mar2.223923.1711@oracorp.com> <1992Mar3.075854.6444@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 32

In article <1992Mar3.075854.6444@leland.Stanford.EDU> shibe@leland.Stanford.EDU (Eric Schaible) writes:
|In contrast, for current computers it is clear that if the
|so-called-semantics are not discrete and formal, then processing is
|impossible.  The absurdly complete and well-defined semantic structure 
|mentioned above is exactly what is needed for the computer to do the job.
|Moreover, it is needed BECAUSE the system possesses no way of understanding the
|term--since the computer has no understanding, one needs to make every
|possible application explicit.

This is where I start to disagree with you. At least as far as essential
capabilities are concerned.  There is no reason at all that a computer could
not be programmed to utilize usage-pattern correlations in constructing
'meaning-relationships' for words.   Indeed, certain advanced, experimental
programs are being worked on that do use just this sort of approach, at
least in a primitive sort of way.

Even beginning books on knowledge representation and reasoning under
uncertainty cover programmatic approaches to these issues.  It is true that
these mechanisms are rarely applied to natural language comprehension, but
even that is being tried by some researchers.

|To sum up:  for the human, there does not need to be one determinate, well-
|defined meaning; for current computers, there does.

No there does not.  There only needs to be a determinate way of utilizing
the available meaning information.  A human has this limit as well, and
meets it by using grammmar and social convention to provide the frame-
work.
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)



