From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!convex!constellation!a.cs.okstate.edu!onstott Tue Mar 24 09:55:52 EST 1992
Article 4468 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
References: <1992Mar14.222241.21065@oracorp.com>
Message-ID: <1992Mar16.002520.11209@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 92 00:25:20 GMT
Lines: 40

In article <1992Mar14.222241.21065@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>
>I agree that it is a fact. All I was saying is that Searle's argument
>that computers can never understand can just as well apply to people
>as computers. Therefore, either (a) there is something magical that
>exempts people from the argument, (b) the argument is wrong, or (c)
>neither people nor computers can understand. Searle believes (a), I
>believe (b), and you are trying to stick me with (c).
>
>Of course people are capable of understanding, but as I said, I
>believe that this fact is due to the functional properties of the
>brain and the way the brain is connected to the world through our
>sense organs. What I don't believe is that there is some magical way
>that our thoughts have "semantics" that is not available to computers.

Daryl,

For clarification purposes, could you please answer the following:

Do you think that humans could possibly have a different kind of semantics? 
Or, to put it another way, can there be different kinds of semantics?
Must semantics be limited in some way such that the term 'semantic' can
only refer to one particular quality?

Thanks.

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                  P.O. Box 2386
Undergraduate in Philosophy              Stillwater, Ok  74076
Oklahoma State University                onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu


"The most abstract system of philosophy is, in its method and purpose, 
nothing more than an extremely ingenious combination of natural sounds."
                                              -- Carl G. Jung
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