From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Wed Feb 26 12:54:05 EST 1992
Article 3969 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb24.180730.18355@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb24.083303.20762@u.washington.edu> <1992Feb24.100036.9114@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 18:07:30 GMT

In article <1992Feb24.100036.9114@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Feb24.083303.20762@u.washington.edu> 
>forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:
>
>GF:
>>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.
>
>This is not a premiss of Searle's argument, but its conclusion.

Actually, it *is* a premise of his *formal* argument (see _Minds, Brains,
and Science_).  It is, in part, this premise for which Searle attempts to
provide evidence in the Chinese Room *demonstration*.

However, none of the above greatly changes the point of this thread.  
Syntax *is not* semantics, and no philosopher has yet given an adequate
account of, or even an inkling of a direction toward, how one could possibly
describe semantics in purely syntatic terms.

- michael





