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Article 5781 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: awfuchs@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (A.W. Fuchs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Ontogenic coupling (was re: meaning)
Message-ID: <1992May20.125906.27161@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 20 May 92 12:59:06 GMT
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Lines: 52

I've been following some of the threads here with interest;
hopefully I'm not about to cover old ground, as I've come
back on line only recently...

First: the distinction being made between "digital" and "real"
realities or "analog" and "computational" ones seems strange
to me if you're talking about transducers. What sort of
transducers are meant? There was an excellent point about
what is a virtual runny nose! Unless I really have come in too
late, the idea seems to be one of grounding in real-world
interactions, not how the transducers operate. The nature of
the interactions is the key issue, surely.

Second: symbol systems. I'm not convinced. I'm in the process
of rereading Winograd & Flores, and it seems so much more likely
IMHO that consciousness & based on -- and a result of -- hi-fi
interactions on a _circuit_ model, rather than on a symbol
system. What is the formal representation for catching a ball
you suddenly see approaching? What tokens are manipulated to
enjoy chocolate? This is not to suggest that humans (or...) 
can't manipulate symbols; obviously they can. But is this all
a red herring?

Third: if you agree with (2) even a little bit, can you point
out to me the slight of hand by which Winograd & Flores get from
this Maturana point of view to dismissing the possibility in
machines? I'm still trying to track it down. I see no good
reason that Rod Brooks & friends can't approximate to some
degree the excellent job done by Nature (or...) in evolving
increasingly clever functional creatures. The only problem
seems to be in passing the successful coupling down the
generations.

So why is this entitled (was Re: meaning)? Just that the nature
of the discussion seems closest to what I'm wondering about and
it seemed like a good time to chime in. Anyway, W & F about
symbols: they are used to allow the addressee to create the
experience desired by the sender; they do not actually carry the
meaning. N'est pas? This requires substantial experiential
coupling between the parties concerned.

Enough.


Andrew W. Fuchs
Faculty of Computing & Information Technology
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
--- awfuchs@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au ---

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