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Article 5831 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis)
Subject: Re: Grounding and Symbols
Message-ID: <1992May22.012530.19921@news.media.mit.edu>
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References: <78417@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992May20.170019.26095@kbsw1> <1992May20.181548.7296@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: Fri, 22 May 1992 01:25:30 GMT
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In article <1992May20.181548.7296@cs.ucf.edu> gomez@barros.cs.ucf.edu (Fernando Gomez) writes:
>
>What is meant by "grounding?" Is it what Quine calls empiri-
>cal meaning?  Quine defines it as: "what remains when, given
>discourse together with all its stimulatory  conditions,  we
>peel  away  the verbiage," Meaning and Translation).

While this still leaves unclear as to *exactly* how I should interpret
"grounding" I have to wonder why the property of being grounded is
important at all.  Assume we have a robot that works roughly on the
same level of competence as a human being.  Assume also that it was
programmed in LISP code that doesn't look much different from the sort
of LISP code you see today (this last clause is put in here to narrow
the possibilities not to include things such as LISP implementations
of neural nets).  Being a LISP program, it will have symbols in it.
Suppose that we can find no adequate basis for them being grounded
under any of the plausible definitions.  So what!  The robot works and
"AI has been achieved."  Don't you all see (and it appears that some
people do, including Fernando) that such a priori discussions over
groundedness aren't accomplishing anything (positive)?

A few people (knowing my interest in AI and knowing that I read some
philosophy) ask me what's this Chinese Room thing all about, they were
completely astonished by my description of it.  One said: "I can't
believe people even take bull*$&% like that seriously."  I have to say
that had that been my first introduction to philosiphy, it would have
been a long time until I read anything else.

I do enjoy reading Patricia and Paul Churchland , Dan Dennett and WVO
Quine (among a few others -- when they are in their less muddled
moments).  One reason that I don't read as much of them as I used to
is because they seem to be debunking myths and illusions and silly
ways of thought that I never entertained.  (Though these people all
have made some positive contributions.)  This is a sad fact, since a
subject like the Philosophy of Science could serve to keep us from
making epistemological pitfals that have been taken by others.

-Nick

PS I wont' have an opportunity to argue about what I've written for
about 10 days since I'll be spending some time in the uncivilized
world (that is, away from internet) for about 10 days.


