From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!nic.umass.edu!dime!orourke Tue Mar 24 09:57:09 EST 1992
Article 4585 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!nic.umass.edu!dime!orourke
>From: orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Keywords: syntax vs. semantics
Message-ID: <45086@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 18 Mar 92 22:54:28 GMT
References: <44765@dime.cs.umass.edu> <6422@skye.ed.ac.uk> <45020@dime.cs.umass.edu> <6430@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu
Reply-To: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Lines: 67

In article <6430@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

 >In article <45020@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
	orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

    >>[Re my contention that the way a program manipulates its symbols
    >>indicates the symbols are not meaningless]:
    >>[The machine] partitions the
    >>universe of symbols into primitive classes: these strings are appropriate
    >>to be passed to this function, and these strings are not.
    >>[And I go on to conclude this indicates the symbols are not without
    >>meaning.]

 >Saying "it partitions", "it is making distinctions", etc, looks to me
 >like begging the question.

I don't see how it is begging the question.  That the machine treats
its symbols differently is an empirical fact:  it will only pass floating-
point numbers to the arctangent function; it will only pass integers to
the "is-prime" function.

 >Anyway, modulo speed, we could replace a computer by one with, say,
 >three instructions (add 1, subtract 1, transfer if 0).  There's
 >certainly a sense in which this machine treats everything as a number
 >(or numeral), but the only distinction it's making is whether the
 >number is zero or not.

I do not believe that looking at a grain finer than the phenomenon of interest
shows that the phenomenon is not present.

    >>Since the machine is discriminating amongst its 
    >>symbols, they must have some meaning to it, the machine. 

 >I find it impossible to escape the feeling that you are talking
 >(at best) about a different sense of meaning.

    >>	If you feel such discrimination is not a type of primitive
    >>meaning, perhaps you should sketch the key requirements of what constitutes
    >>a meaningful symbol in your theory of meaning.

 >I don't have a theory of meaning and, as always, I reject the
 >suggestion that the burden of proof should be on the "anti-AI"
 >side to provide definitions.
 >
 >On the other hand, if you can show that there is a widely accepted
 >theory of meaning according to which such discrimination counts as
 >meaning, I'd be interested in knowing more about it.

I am not well-read in philosophy; I don't know what the "widely accepted 
theories of meaning" are.  I'm making up my own as I go along.  If I'm
using "a different sense of meaning" from you, but you reject the suggestion
that you indicate what IS your sense of meaning, then the only recourse
is for you to point me to something to read (or we cease discussion).  
I have benefited from this in the past; in particular, you got me to 
study Lakoff's "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things."

    >> >[...]Now, the Geometry Room, for example, [...]

 >There's a difference between being taught geometry and being taught
 >some way to fake it.  If you want to say they're the same, you should
 >at least produce an argument.

Oh no, I don't want to say they are the same.  I would just insist that
whatever criteria we apply to a humans, we also apply to machines.  No
doubt we differ on this point, as you have oft stated (or implied) that 
with humans, we can assume the method is the same, but with machines, we 
have to look "inside" to see if the methods meet (unspecified) criteria. 


