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Article 4043 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb26.183132.30181@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
References: <1992Feb24.171942.10981@psych.toronto.edu> <450@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Feb26.172245.10210@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 18:31:32 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <1992Feb26.172245.10210@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>
>Of course there is. That's wy the distinction is universally held.
>Consider:
>   The boy kicked the ball to the girl.
>   A monster pinned the prince to the wall.
>
>They have the same syntax, but different semantics. Now consider:

  Excuse me, but in the context of the discussion, this is completely idiotic.

  Those two sentences are both stored on my computer at present.  And when
I do a COMPARE, they do not compare equal.  If the have the same syntax but
different semantics, this is proof positive that computers can represent
semantics.

  If you want to say that computers are only capable of syntax you must have
a much broader definition of syntax than your example shows.  You have to
treat the Beethoven symphonies recorded on compact disk as syntax.  You have
to treat the information the explorer satellites sent back from Io, which
revealed the presence of volcanos as syntax, since it was completely
encoded digitally.  You have to treat weather predictions coming from
computer models of the atmosphere as syntactic information, even if they are
more accurate than predictions made by humans not using the models.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940


