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Article 6845 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Indistinguishability is a Scientific Criterion
Message-ID: <1992Sep9.184254.17118@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 9 Sep 92 18:42:54 GMT
References: <1992Sep6.200121.4383@Princeton.EDU>
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In article <1992Sep6.200121.4383@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU  
(Stevan Harnad) writes:
> ** FOOTNOTE: In a nutshell, the symbol grounding problem can be stated
> as follows: Computers manipulate meaningless symbols that are
> systematically INTERPRETABLE as meaning something. The problem is that
> the interpretations are not intrinsic to the symbol manipulating
> system; they are made by the mind of the external interpreter (as when
> I interpret the letters from my TT pen-pal as meaningful messages).
> This leads to an infinite regress if we try to assume that what
> goes on in MY mind is just symbol manipulation too, because the thoughts
> in my mind do not mean what they mean merely because they are
> interpretable by someone ELSE's mind: Their meanings are intrinsic. One
> possible solution would be to ground the meanings of a system's symbols
> in the system's capacity to discriminate, identify, and manipulate
> the objects that the symbols are interpretable as standing for (Harnad
> 1987), in other words, to ground its symbolic capacities in its robotic
> capacities. Grounding symbol-manipulating capacities in
> object-manipulating capacities is not just a matter of attaching the
> latest transducer/effector technologies to a computer, however. Hybrid
> systems may need to make extensive use of analog components and perhaps
> also neural nets, in order to connect symbols to their objects (Harnad et
> al. 1991; Harnad 1992).
> --
An excellent summary, methinks.  Now I think I appreciate exactly what
you mean by grounding and the Total TT.  
--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
(407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu


