From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Wed Feb 26 12:53:59 EST 1992
Article 3961 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb24.171942.10981@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb24.083303.20762@u.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 17:19:42 GMT

In article <1992Feb24.083303.20762@u.washington.edu> forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:
>
>It seems to me that one has to first accept the premises that semantics is
>not reducable to syntax and machines only manipulating symbols acording
>to syntatic rules.  If one truely accept that the machine produced behavior
>indistinguishable from human who understand then it is not obvious that
>both of these presises can still be consistantly held.

Really? To me the onus seems to be on he who claims that, against all the
obvious evidence, that semantics is really syntax in disguise. In the 
absence of such a proof, there's no particular reason to believe they
are. As Fodor has pointed out, Disneyland produces behavior indistinguishible
from that of the real world, but we do not therefore think of it as a scientific
theory of physics.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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