From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!news2me.ebay.sun.com!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM!silber Mon May 25 14:06:00 EDT 1992
Article 5719 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: 'REAL' grounding/Symbol-Grund and Symbol-Abgrund
Date: 18 May 1992 19:13:35 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <l1g0evINNj78@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
References: <1992May15.152549.13330@psych.toronto.edu> <1992May17.071803.28448@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992May17.141053.7695@news.acns.nwu.edu> <1992May17.212856.2199@Princeton.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: orfeo
Keywords: symbols, grounding, analog

In article <1992May17.212856.2199@Princeton.EDU> harnad@shine.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>
>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.
>...
>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.

There are some serious problems with 
this construction of 'symbol grounding' .  

Case1: When the 'real' grounding mechanisms are removed,
meaning does not disappear, nor does the ability to produce new
meaning: If one lost all 5 senses, the mind could persist, and its
ability to interpret and to generate new symbols could persist.

Case2:  Acquired symbols, that is to say symbols 'integrated' into mind
and now some number of steps removed from the 'grounding insatnces',
might be carried under some concept of a mind-copy or a brain-dump into
a machine.  What was copied, was a stored derivative of the original
'grounding instance' no longer directly dependent upon the original
'grounding instance', so the 'brain-dump' could be 'activated' in the
target 'machine' and it could continue its mentation without sensory
dependence.

The examples seem to show the conditional nature of the 'symbol grounding'
requirement.  




