From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!ogicse!psgrain!percy!nosun!hilbert!max Tue Nov 26 12:32:49 EST 1991
Article 1621 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca rec.arts.books:10688 sci.philosophy.tech:1140 comp.ai.philosophy:1621
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!ogicse!psgrain!percy!nosun!hilbert!max
>From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle (was Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Comme
Message-ID: <1991Nov26.011950.1658@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com>
Date: 26 Nov 91 01:19:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: hilbert.1991Nov26.011950.1658
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu> <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor Northwest, Beaverton Oregon
Lines: 51

In article <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu> 
>matt@physics.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern) writes:
>A symbol is an iconic or a substitutive sign, something that stands for
>something else.  A C function is a symbol standing for an assembly language
>algorithm, and, eventually, for a sequence of machine language instructions,
>in virtue of your system's compilers.  Pray tell, what part of the computer
>hardware or software could make it stand for something outside the machine,
>as signs used by humans stand for things in virtue of their meanings?

1) a C function does NOT denote machine language instructions. Otherwise
   the concept of multiply-targeted C compilers would have no meaning.
   You are discussing the semantics of programming languages, which you
   (apparently) have never studied. How *ignorant* of you (to paraphrase
   your insult of another poster).

2) If the computer, in the course of it's operation, developed it's
   own representation of the environment (many programs do this - I
   have written one, it is no great feat) and achieved complex goals 
   using the representation, then (in the context of the behavior
   of the system) it is clear that there are features in the representation
   that represent features in the outside world. It is also clear that
   it is the functioning of the system as a whole that makes it possible
   for us to talk about the 'meaning' of an internal symbol to the
   system as a whole.

Also, lets try this on humans and see if it is a fair question there:
<compilers.  Pray tell, what part of the human hardware or software could
<make [sign] stand for something outside the human,...?

Answer: there is no part of the human hardware that you can look at
and say, because of this, 'gabi' maps to "late evening".
You would (if you didn't already know Tagalog) have to analyse the
behavior (including speech acts) of the human to determine that. Here,
as with the machine, it is the behavior of the machine that supplies
the context within which the phrase "meaning of internal representations"
itself has meaning. (can you say "distributed representation"?)

Your question is not fair, because it assumes that all features of
the functioning of a machine must each be represented by some separate
bit of hardware. Not true. I can call the ability to pursue your
desires diligently in the face of opposition "will" - that doesn't mean that
there is a "will center" in the brain, which, when destroyed renders
the person an obedient zombie. "Will" is a feature of the systems behavior
as a whole, and attempts to find it by analyzing individual neuronal
synapses, or even sections of cortex, would be very silly. Ever heard
of "reification"? Methinks you take your rhetoric way too seriously.

> Mikhail Zeleny

	Max


