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Article 5715 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: learn@speedy.acns.nwu.edu (William J. Vajk)
Subject: Re: on what meaning means
Message-ID: <1992May18.120950.22705@news.acns.nwu.edu>
Keywords: symbols, grounding, analog
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Organization: Dares No Organization Like Dis Organization
References: <1992May17.071803.28448@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992May17.141053.7695@news.acns.nwu.edu> <1992May17.212856.2199@Princeton.EDU>
Date: Mon, 18 May 1992 12:09:50 GMT

In article <1992May17.212856.2199@Princeton.EDU> Stevan Harnad writes:

>In article <1992May17.141053.7695@news.acns.nwu.edu> William J. Vajk writes:

>>Helen Keller didn't suddenly bootstrap easily using a newly built neural
>>network and some single piece of new information. She was led to water,
>>so to speak, after a memorable life experience of well over a decade.

>Helen Keller was not just a computer without eyes and ears, any
>more than Stephen Hawking is a paralyzed computer. Analogies like
>this beg the question by presupposing what they're trying to show.

Anyone familiar with the Helen Keller Story knows there was a distinct
point in her life, indeed later than usual when compared to "normal" 
children, when she did "bootstrap" understandings of the sorts which come 
easily to most of us. I defend the analogy as valid for the particular 
case and urge anyone interested in AI to read (or view the film) about Helen.

>A symbol system that is systematically interpretable as a
>Chinese-Chinese dictionary is just as ungrounded if it is connected to
>another symbol system that is interpretable as encyclopedic knowledge,
>and yet another one that is interpretable as objects in the real world.
>Singly and collectively, they are just squiggles and squoggles, and
>there is no way to bootstrap to meaning from that, no matter how
>systematically interepretable it all is, and no matter how coherently
>the interpretations square with one another.

Interestingly, you have just defined Helen's pre-"bootstrap" problem.

>Grounding has to be real, through real robotic interactions with the
>real world of objects, Totally Turing-Indistinguishable from our own
>interactions with that same world.

Ahhhh, ya rascal. And you've explained the solution which worked in 
Helen's case as well.

I don't think discussions involving Helen Keller are inappropriate in
context. We are not attempting to equate Helen with a machine. We are
however, attempting to describe machines which behave in ways very human.
And Helen, while very human, was able to speak with a unique memory for 
events, challenges, and experiences unavailable to most of us. She 
developed late exactly because she was unable to acquire the sort of 
grounding required till an enlightened teacher (as opposed to a caretaker) 
entered her life.

Bill Vajk   |    Man is the only animal that blushes.
            |    Or needs to.
            |                   - Mark Twain



