From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon May 25 14:07:12 EDT 1992
Article 5848 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Grounding and Symbols
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992May20.170019.26095@kbsw1> <1992May20.181548.7296@cs.ucf.edu> <1992May20.201113.3883@spss.com>
Message-ID: <1992May22.173314.3029@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 22 May 1992 17:33:14 GMT

In article <1992May20.201113.3883@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992May20.181548.7296@cs.ucf.edu> gomez@barros.cs.ucf.edu (Fernando Gomez) writes:
>>I have trouble with the idea of "grounding" as presented  by
>>Harnad  and others.  I read his paper in JTAI. The source of
>>my difficulty is that most symbols (I should say concepts  -
>>should   he?)   cannot  be  grounded  in  reality.  Consider
>>"bachelor." How do you ground this one? It is clear that you
>>do  not  find  out that somebody is a bachelor by looking at
>>his face, or touching him, etc.  Stimuli do not  help  here.
>>"Bachelor" gets its meaning from other symbols which in turn
>>are clearly ungroundable: "male" and "unmarried."  (Uhh!  On
>>second  thought, I think one could ground "male.") In under-
>>standing "bachelor" we are acting not much differently  from
>>Searle's  man  in the chinese room.  
>
>"Bachelor" is more abstract than "male", but not any more divorced from 
>real-world knowledge.  Compare it with a term I just invented, "borchelor,"
>which is composed of the concepts "beige", "bearded," "amateur",
>and "on fire."  My word very clearly is just an amalgation of concepts,
>and helps us see that "bachelor" is not; it names a class of people
>which has a certain meaning in our culture; we have certain stereotypes
>and expectations about such people; its meaning has complications that
>go beyond "male" and "unmarried" (are Catholic priests bachelors?), etc.  
>In other words, it's grounded.

I believe you've missed the point.  If "grounding" is due to transducers,
then all symbols must be grounded either *directly* through transducer
patterns, that is, *sensory* stimuli, or be grounded by being composed of
symbols which are grounded in the former way.  I simply *don't*
see how one can ground "unmarried" in this fashion - what sensory
stimuli define unmarried?  (Note that just because a concept is
used in the culture does *not* mean that it is "grounded" in the
sense that I understand Harnad to be using the term.)  This is a problem
for *all* abstract terms as far as I can see.  Of course, this is *not*
a new debate in philosophy, which is yet another reason why I find it hard
to understand Harnad's position...

- michael



